Bad news is good news again

US stocks rose last week as traders celebrated a bleak jobs report, betting it would put the Federal Reserve's rate-hike plans on ice.

This week could see stocks adding to gains as long as there are no nasty surprises from earnings reports, and no pleasant surprises from economic data.

Only 142,000 jobs were added to US payrolls in September, suggesting the wobbles in Chinese and emerging-markets growth have spread to US shores.

US stocks were initially beaten down by the report because of fears that it portended a recession. Later, the bad economic news was reinterpreted as good stock-market news. For much of the recent market slide, all news was bad market news. Bad economic news was bad news because of the danger that the US, the last major economy to hold its head above the water, would be dragged under by emerging markets. Good economic news was bad news …