Stocks began the day in positive territory and remained there all day. The market moved in a fairly narrow range as the market participation was low and the news flow was slow. The day's economic reports, highlighted by the monthly jobs report, had little impact and as the day progressed the volume dried up and the market limped into the close ahead of the long weekend.

ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., nonfarm payrolls increased 156,000 in August, missing the consensus call for 180,000 job additions. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% from 4.3% in the prior month, where it had been forecast to remain. The final Markit manufacturing index dipped 0.5 points to 52.8 in August from 53.3 in July. The ISM manufacturing index rose 2.5 points to 58.8 in August from 56.3 in July, which was much better than expected. Construction spending fell another 0.6% in July following a revised 1.4% drop reported for June. The final University of Michigan sentiment reading for August came in at 96.8, below the 97.6 flash reading but up from 93.4 in July. In energy news, Baker Hughes reported the U.S. rig count is up 3 rigs from last week to 943.

COMPANY NEWS: General Motors (GM) advanced 2.2% while Ford (F) was up nearly 3% after the two automakers reported on their August U.S. sales. Ford reported a decline in vehicles sold of 2.1%, though that was not as steep as the 2.4% consensus decline forecast, while GM posted a big upside report with its sales rising 7.5% last month compared to a year ago... Meanwhile, shares of DowDuPont (DWDP) were in focus after announcing the successful completion of the merger of equals between Dow Chemical (DOW) and DuPont (DD). Following the completion, the stock was initiated with an Outperform rating at Bernstein and a Buy rating at Nomura Instinet... Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced that it has completed the spin-off and subsequent merger of its software business with Micro Focus International of the U.K.

MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers after earnings were Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and lululemon (LULU), which advanced 10.5% and 7%, respectively. Among the noteworthy losers was Ambarella (AMBA), which tumbled 22% after the chip maker reported stronger than expected quarterly results but cut its guidance. Also lower were shares of Health Insurance Innovations (HIIQ), which was weak yesterday and fell another 8% today amid media reports that the federal government plans to cut funding for ACA advertising by 90% and funding for the navigator program by 40%.

INDEXES: The Dow rose 39.46, or 0.18%, to 21,987.56, the Nasdaq gained 6.67, or 0.1%, to 6,435.33, and the S&P 500 advanced 4.90, or 0.2%, to 2,476.55.