U.S. stocks closed higher on Monday, recovering from Friday's sharp decline as investors took a more positive outlook on the strong jobs report.

"We're bouncing back a little bit from Friday's selloff," said Alan Skrainka, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth Management. "Cooler heads prevail. People realize a great economy is good."

Investors saw a June rate rise more likely after February's nonfarm jobs report showed a gain of 295,000, above expectations of 240,000 in February, down from 257,000 in January.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent, while hourly wages ticked up 0.1 percent, below consensus and off the surprise 0.5 percent gain in January.

"I certainly think (the market) is very worried about the Fed, (which) created this financial market dream world environment," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. "As I thought about it over the weekend, ultimately the economy should prevail."

"I'd rather have strong economic news and the Fed's going to tighten than weak economic data and the Fed has no ammunition," Ablin said.

The JOLTS report is due Tuesday along with wholesale trade data followed by the monthly Federal budget statement on Wednesday. Arguably the most noteworthy release will be February retail sales figures on Thursday.



"There's no economic news (on Monday) so markets are going to reassess Friday's employment data," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital. "Friday's (selloff) was over-exaggerated. The market is catching its breath here."



Earnings due after the bell Monday include Urban Outfitters, Casey's General, United Natural Foods.

"This is a week we think about the consumer," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities. He added that most of the corporate news of the day, from the Apple Watch to McDonald's same-store sales miss, was priced in.

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Monday is the that began after the recession. The Dow briefly added more than 150 points but failed to close above 18,000. The S&P 500 closed up 0.40 percent, while the Nasdaq was within 100 points of the 5,000 level it breached last Monday for the first time since March 2000.

