Stock rose yesterday as Wall Street looked beyond grim news of the largest jump in unemployment in two decades in October. For the week, the Dow fell 2.3 per cent, Nasdaq was 1.3 per cent lower and S&P 500 shed 1.6 per cent.

"The key point is that the stock market, or investors, have already priced in weakness for October," said Mr Brian Pears, head of equity trading at Victory Capital Management, which oversees $71 billion. Investors are showing resilience in the face of a troubled economy. Some 415,000 jobs were shed in October, the biggest loss since May 1980. The unemployment rate soared to 5.4 per cent from 4.9 per cent in September.

"As ugly as the headline numbers are, it's really not a surprise to see exceptional weakness. The economy was weak before the [September 11th] attacks and certainly we all knew that it had turned down significantly after the attacks," Pears said.

Year-to-date, the Dow is down 13.6 per cent, Nasdaq 29.3 per cent and S&P 500 is 17.65 per cent lower.