Friday morning headlines

Market surge: The much-improved jobs report is providing a boost. Dow has been up around 125 points for most of the early morning.

Work hours going up: They're now at an average of 33.2 hours a week, up from 33 hours and the biggest increase since 2003. Could be a sign that employers are ready to do some more hiring. From NYT columnist David Leonhardt:

How much should we make of one month's report? It's probably best to be conservative. I'd be surprised if this rate of progress continues in coming months. But this is still very good news: many fewer people were out of work last month than expected.

Calpers and Broidy: The California pension fund made $50 million in investment commitments with Elliott Broidy, the same L.A. guy who pleaded guilty yesterday to bribing NY pension officials. From the LAT:

Over the last decade, Broidy and his wife made nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions, including donations to two CalPERS board members, to officials who were seeking or held statewide political offices at the time. CalPERS says it is evaluating its partnership with Markstone and looking at its legal options. In the meantime, it has asked a Washington legal advisor, who is conducting an investigation of the pension fund's relationships with investment managers, to look into Markstone's dealings with the board and staff, CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco said.

On the Comcast deal: Wash Post columnist Steven Pearlstein says the cable giant is hedging its bets:

Now that you can get a bundle of phone, television and Internet service from any number of sources at roughly the same price, the focus is turning back to content, applications and services that can be accessed through these "pipes." Suddenly, it's distribution that's looking like the low-margin commodity and content that is king. The logic of the Comcast-NBC merger is that by having a strong position in both content and distribution, it won't matter how all this plays out. For both Comcast and NBC, vertical integration is a hedging strategy that will ensure each emerges from the current competitive chaos as a survivor, no matter where on the value chain the profits and power end up.

Rolling Stone in Hollywood: Seems a little strange, but the magazine plans to open a restaurant and nightclub next summer at Hollywood & Highland. Also moving into the H&H complex is the Hard Rock Cafe. (LAT)

Dip in property taxes: It's due to a small drop in the inflation rate - and it doesn't amount to very much: For a SFV home priced around $400,000, savings would total $10.40. (Daily News)

Speaking of dips: Gas prices keep falling - slowly. An average gallon of regular in the L.A. area fell a little over a penny, to $2.941, according to the Auto Club.