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Despite a higher-than-expected unemployment rate, stocks managed back-to-back gains, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) up almost 100 points on Friday.

The unemployment rate came in at 9.7% compared to the 9.5% analysts had forecast. But smaller-than-expected job losses seemed to buoy investors' confidence, and buying in technology and industrial stocks led to the broad advance.

During the weekend, some commentators noted the lagging nature of the unemployment rate and pointed to other global economic reports that tend to show that the worldwide recession has ended. But others also observed that the U.S. stock markets have had an unusually boisterous rally since the lows of March, and are thus overbought and due for a pullback.

There was little, other than the unemployment report, to influence stocks on Friday, and the volume ahead of Labor Day weekend was very low.

At the close, the Dow rose 97 points, closing at 9,441, the S&P 500 (SPX) gained 13 points to 1,016, and the Nasdaq (NASD) gained 36 points to 2,018. 

The NYSE traded just over 1 billion shares with advancers ahead of decliners by almost 5-to-1. On the Nasdaq, advancers led by 3-to-1 on volume of 526 million shares.

For the week, the Dow fell 1.1%, the S&P 500 was off 1.2%, and the Nasdaq was down 0.5%.