Stocks were slightly lower on Friday after the December jobs report missed expectations, but markets remained confident that the Federal Reserve will act rather quickly to lift interest rates. The report was stronger than it looked on the surface.
In morning trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 25 points, or 0.1%, after the index fell 170 points Thursday to close at 36,236. The S&P 500 and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite were 0.1% lower. All three major indexes fell immediately after the jobs report, then…