U.S. Stocks Jump After Solid March Jobs Report 

U.S. stocks climbed Friday after the government said job growth continued at a strong clip in March. Makers of consumer goods and household products rose, and health care companies rebounded. The solid employment report helped U.S. stocks stay out of a steep global decline.

Early in the day stocks fell along with the prices of oil and precious metals, but they recovered later and finished at their highest levels of the day. The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report showed that employers added 215,000 jobs last month, a sign the economy isn’t slowing down. Energy companies took big losses. Hotel companies and airlines both tumbled.

The& Dow& Jones industrial average rose 107.66 points, or 0.6 percent, to 17,792.75. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 13.04 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,072.78. The Nasdaq composite index gained 44.69 points, or 0.9 percent, to 4,914.54. Stocks haven’t made many sharp moves in recent weeks, but have drifted gradually higher.

Consumer companies rose. Procter & Gamble, which makes Pampers diapers and Tide detergent, gained $1.22, or 1.5 percent, to $83.53. Drugstore chain Walgreens rose $2.46, or 2.9 percent, to $86.70. Mondelez, the maker of Oreo cookies and Trident gum, added $1.12, or 2.8 percent, to $41.24.

Energy prices dropped as investors became more pessimistic about the fate of a proposed deal for major oil-producing nations to reduce production. That would help address a gigantic glut in global supplies, which has hurt prices. U.S. crude fell $1.55, or 4 percent, to $36.79 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the benchmark for pricing international oils, gave up $1.66, or 4.1 percent, to $38.67 a barrel in London.

Marathon Oil retreated 70 cents, or 6.3 percent, to $10.44 and Diamond Offshore Drilling lost 76 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $20.97.

Tesla Motors gained $7.82, or 3.4 percent, to $237.59 after the electric car company said it received a flood of orders for Model 3, the new, lower-priced vehicle it announced on Thursday. On Twitter, CEO Elon Musk said the company has booked 198,000 orders.

Gold fell $12.10, or 1 percent, to $1,223.50 an ounce. Silver dropped 42 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $15.05 an ounce. Copper lost two cents to $2.16 a pound.

Retailer Urban Outfitters disclosed strong sales at its older stores, and the stock added $1.20, or 3.6 percent, to $34.29. Urban Outfitters is the best-performing stock on the S&P 500 index this year, as its value has climbed 51 percent.

In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline fell 5 cents, or 3 percent, to $1.40 a gallon. Heating oil slid 5 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $1.13 a gallon. Natural gas was little changed at $1.96 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Stocks overseas tumbled. Germany’s DAX lost 1.7 percent and the CAC-40 in France tumbled 1.4 percent, and in Britain, the FTSE 100 lost 0.5 percent. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 sank 3.6 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.1 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declined 1.3 percent. Asian markets were hit by weak economic reports from Japan. The nations’ big exporters have been hit twofold by a slowing Chinese economy and a rising yen.

Bond prices didn’t move much. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note held steady at 1.77 percent. The dollar fell to 111.73 yen from 112.53 yen. The euro rose to $1.1392 from $1.1387.