But the unemployment is now 7.9%....

The mostly upbeat Labor Department report Friday included one negative sign: the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December. The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of households, while job gains come from a survey of employers.

The hiring picture over the past two years looked better after the department’s annual revisions. Those showed employers added an average of roughly 180,000 jobs per month in 2012 and 2011, up from previous estimates of about 150,000. And hiring was stronger at the end of last year, averaging 200,000 new jobs in the final three months.

If the thinking is correct, Wall Street will react positively to this report. And if this positive response is strong, we might cross and close beyond the 14,000 mark today. The last and only time the market reached this sphere of value was in October 2007.

UPDATE:

The Dow Jones industrial average briefly topped 14,000 on Friday morning, a milestone not seen since before the financial crisis rocked the markets and the world economy.