Stocks closed lower on Friday and for the week after a disappointing jobs report.

The consensus for Friday's Employment Situation report was expected to show 400,000 new jobs were created in December (363K in the private sector and 37K in the public). Instead, that number came in at 199,000 (211K in the private sector and -12K in the public). The unemployment rate, however, came in better than expected at 3.9% vs. last month's 4.2% and views for 4.1%. And the participation rate came in as expected, ticking up from 61.8% to 61.9%.

The industries with the biggest job gains were: Leisure and Hospitality with 53,000 new jobs; Professional and Business Services with 43,000; Manufacturing added 26,000; Construction was up by 22,000; Transportation and Warehousing increased by 19,000; Wholesale Trade picked up 14,000; and Mining rose by 7,000 new jobs.

The miss notwithstanding, it was yet another month of job gains, albeit less than expected.

It was also nice to see October's tally revised up by 102,000 jobs, bringing that number up from 546K to 648K. November was revised up as well, adding another 39,000, which brings that tally up from 210K to 249K.

And, in spite of the slower hiring pace last month, the fact remains that there are still far more jobs available than there are unemployed people to fill them, which means an expanding jobs market is something we are likely to see for the foreseeable future. And that's bullish for the economy and the market.

All in all, that was the last jobs report of 2021. As a whole, it was one of the best years for job gains in history with over 6.4 million new jobs created. Granted, those were mostly regained jobs that were lost due to the pandemic. And we?re still 3.6 million jobs under where we were before the pandemic began. But it does underscore how the economy is bouncing back. That can also be seen in the unemployment rate of 3.9%, which was just shy of a 50-year low of 3.5% made in February 2020 (just before the pandemic began).

And with that, the first trading week of January comes to a close.

Nobody likes to see a down week. But for perspective, 2021 was pretty stellar. And we've got another 51 weeks to go for 2022.

And with a robust economic outlook for this year, it looks like we could be in store for another fantastic year of gains.

So make sure you're taking full advantage it.

See you tomorrow,