After weeks of conflicting signals about the strength of the economy, a big gain in the jobs market gave Wall Street reason to celebrate Friday.
The stock market surged, and the wave of buying drove three indexes through major milestones.
The Dow Jones industrial average punched through another milestone, 15,000, before easing back. The Standard and Poor's 500 index closed above 1,600 for the first time.
The Dow rose 142.38 points to close at 14,973.96, up 1 percent. The S&P 500 index surged 16.83 points, or 1 percent, to 1,614.42. The Nasdaq composite index rose 38.01 points to 3,378.63, an increase of 1.1 percent.
A surprisingly strong job report set it all off. U.S. employers added 165,000 new workers in April and many more in February and March than previously estimated. The unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in four years, 7.5 percent.
For the week, the Dow rose 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 gained 2 percent, and the Nasdaq advanced 3 percent.
The Washington Post-Bloomberg Regional Stock Index finished Friday at 280.60, up 0.88 percent from a week earlier.
