Boost for stocks from robust jobs growth despite lurking deflation risk with weak oil

STOCKS finished near records last week as surprisingly strong jobs data erased January fears that the US would follow weaker trading partners into a dangerous deflationary spiral.

The jobs report ticked almost every box on Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen's wish list. With 257,000 people added to payrolls in January and revisions showing an average of 300,000 added in the three months previous, the jobs growth rate was more consistent with boom times in the 1990s than the uneven recovery of recent years.

In January, thousands of people came out of the shadows of long-term unemployment to file claims as job seekers. Perhaps most importantly for Ms Yellen's Fed, the hourly wage ticked up - suggesting that a recovery mostly felt by affluent Americans so far is slowly spreading to the middle class.