Today: Santa Clara County is the strongest job market in the nation, fueled by a technology boom that isn’t letting up, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, that showed over the 12 months that ended in August, total payroll employment in Santa Clara County expanded by 5.5 percent.
The lead: Silicon Valley remains nation’s strongest job market
Santa Clara County is the strongest job market in the nation, fueled by a technology boom that isn’t letting up, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Over the 12 months that ended in August, total payroll employment in Santa Clara County expanded by 5.5 percent. That was the best job growth among the 51 metro areas in the nation with at least 1 million residents or more.
The South Bay also is the only metro area with an annual rate of job growth of 5 percent or more.
No. 2 on the list was the San Francisco-San Mateo region with an increase of 4.6 percent over the 12 months ending in August.
Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C. and Portland, Ore. were tied for No. 3, each with a 4 percent gain.
The East Bay posted a gain of 1.9 percent over the year.
Santa Clara County is now 10,600 jobs below the all-time record for employment that the region set in December 2000, when the region had 1,075,600 non-farm payroll jobs.
SV150 market report: Tesla vehicle deliveries zoom, T-Mobile customer info gets hacked, There’s a GOOG and GOOGL in Alphabet
Palo Alto-based Tesla says its deliveries of electric vehicles soared 49 percent higher in the third quarter that ended in September, compared to the year-ago quarter. That’s the sixth consecutive quarter of vehicle delivery growth for Tesla. Tesla rose 3.2 percent.
Mountain View-based Google has reorganized into a holding company called Alphabet Inc. Google has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet and other more risky ventures are operating separately from Google and under the umbrella of the Alphabet holding company. Google bets it can use the changed structure to highlight the profitability of its main Internet-based advertising business, as well as enable the growth prospects of projects that are more speculative and risky. Google rose 2.3 percent.
About 15 million T-Mobile customers were exposed by a data breach at credit-reporting agency Experian, the latest such digital invasion to jolt Corporate America. Current and former T-Mobile customers, as well as consumers who applied for financing for a device or services over the last two years were affected. Customers’ names, addresses, birth dates, as well as social security numbers, driver’s licenses and passports. T-Mobile rose 1.4 percent, Experian fell 3.8 percent.
The Apple Watch will go on sale at some Target stores in the United States next week and will be available at all of the outlets of the big-box retailer by Oct. 25. Shoppers will be able to order the device at the Target web site starting Oct. 18. Apple rose 0.7 percent.
Foster City-based Gilead Sciences suffered a downgrade from Morgan Stanley analysts who said that, in an atmosphere of increased regulatory scrutiny over drug pricing, the best-positioned pharmaceutical companies will be those that are innovative and whose business models don’t rely too heavily on higher prices. Gilead was up 0.01 percent.
Campbell-based Barracuda Networks soared 12.9 percent higher after management announced a share buy-back program and Imperial Capital reiterated a “buy” rating on the communications equipment company.
Emeryville-based LeapFrog Enterprises slumped 3.8 percent.
Silicon Valley tech stocks
Up: The biggest winners by percent change were Barracuda Networks, InvenSense, SolarCity, Yelp, YuMe.
Down: The biggest losers by percent change were LeapFrog Enterprises, VMWare, Fair Isaac, Electronic Arts, Synaptics.
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies: Up 31.94, or 2.04 percent, to 1,596.85.
The tech-focused Nasdaq composite index: Up 80.69, or 1.74 percent, to 4,707.78.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 200.36 or 1.23 percent, to 16,472.37.
And the broad-based Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Up 27.54, or 1.43 percent, to 1,951.36.
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