The Dow rose 248 points . The S&P 500 gained 32. The Nasdaq rallied 87.

Investors are betting that a grim November jobs report will pressure Congress to act quickly on a stimulus plan.

U.S. employers added only 245,000 new jobs last month, which marks the lowest hiring in six months. This economy still needs to add about 10 million jobs to get back to where it was before the health crisis. The nation's unemployment rate fell to 6.7 in November as discouraged workers stopped looking for work. To make matters worse, some 12 million Americans are scheduled to lose jobless assistance when it expires the day after Christmas.

The somber situation is likely to put pressure on Congress to get down to business and pass another stimulus package - and that's what Wall Street wants to see, says Mannik Dhillon. He's president of Victory Shares and Solutions.

"You can tell that what the market is really waiting on and anticipating is really more stimulus and stimulus in addition to the potential of a vaccine that's going to hopefully bring people back to jobs, spending money and all the other things that we were doing back in February and before. So it's an anticipation of normalcy that is being experienced or exhibited in the market today."

From Wall Street to Washington - the dismal jobs numbers and the need for stimulus was all that anybody talked about. President-elect Joe Biden urged Congress to pass an economic relief bill immediately and be prepared to follow that up with more aid in January in the "hundreds of billions of dollars."

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called a $908 billion bi-partisan stimulus proposal unveiled this week a start and said there was momentum behind talks to get a package together.

It is unclear if Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or the White House is on board.

Nevertheless, economically-sensitive stocks like banks and energy finished strong on talk of more stimulus to come. Of the major oil companies - Chevron rallied nearly 4 percent, Exxon Mobil gained 3.6 percent.