US STOCKS-Wall Street jumps on record payrolls surge

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* U.S. job growth in June beats expectations
* Tesla jumps after Q2 deliveries beat
* Florida reports record rise in daily infections
* Indexes up: Dow 1.16%, S&P 1.17%, Nasdaq 1.18%

(Updates to late afternoon, changes dateline, byline)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) - Wall Street advanced on
Thursday as investors headed into their long holiday weekend
buoyed by a record payrolls jump, which provided assurance that
the U.S. economic recovery was well under way.
All three major U.S. stock averages were more than 1%
higher, with the S&P 500 set to post its fourth straight daily
advance and the Nasdaq on course to reach a second straight
all-time closing high.
Massive stimulus and hopes for a speedy economic rebound
have returned the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to about 7% and 12%
below their record highs reached in February.
The indexes are all on track for solid weekly percentage
gains.
The U.S. economy added 4.8 million jobs USNFAR=ECI in June
according to the Labor Department, 1.8 million more than
analysts expected, setting a second consecutive record.
Massive rehiring sent the unemployment rate USUNR=ECI down
to 11.1%. "A lot of these numbers when you dig into the report -
average weekly hours people are working, average hourly earnings
... those things are just showing that we are getting back to
work," said Justin Hoogendoorn, head of Fixed Income Strategic
Analytics at Piper Sandler in Chicago. "And that's what's going
to allow the stock market to continue to perform well."
Even with May and June's consecutive record payroll gains,
the labor market has still recovered only a fraction of the 22
million jobs lost in the March-April plunge.
The recovery of the U.S. economy, now in its sixth month of
recession, could stall as new cases of COVID-19 hit record
levels and several states hit hardest by the resurgence halted
or reversed plans to reopen their economies.
On Thursday, Florida reported a record-shattering 10,000 new
cases of the disease, worse than any European country reported
at the peak of their outbreaks. In the coming weeks, market participants will train their
focus on second-quarter reporting season. In aggregate, analysts
now expect S&P earnings to have dropped by 43.1% as companies
grappled with plunging demand and disrupted supply chains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 298.31 points,
or 1.16%, to 26,033.28, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 36.36 points,
or 1.17%, to 3,152.22 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
120.31 points, or 1.18%, to 10,274.94.
All 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 were trading in the
black, with energy shares .SPNY enjoying the largest
percentage gain.
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O provided the biggest boost to the
S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, and in June retained its top spot as the
most globally invested stock, according to data from trading
platform eToro. Airlines, battered by pandemic-related travel restrictions,
gained altitude. The S&P 1500 Airlines index .SPCOMAIR was up
1.2%
Tesla Inc TSLA.O jumped 7.8% after the electric car
maker's second-quarter vehicle deliveries beat Wall Street
estimates. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.98-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.68-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 35 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 115 new highs and 10 new lows.