The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on Friday as Wall Street mainly digested the nonfarm payrolls report for April.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 55.47 points, or 0.26 percent, to 21,006.94. The S&P 500 rose 9.77 points, or 0.41 percent, to 2,399.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 25.42 points, or 0.42 percent, to 6,100.76.

U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 211,000 in April, better than market estimates, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, said the Labor Department on Friday.

In April, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 7 cents to 26.19 U.S. dollars. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 65 cents, or 2.5 percent.

Investors had been looking forward to April jobs report after March's numbers disappointed Wall Street.

Traders kept a close eye on the nonfarm payrolls to gauge whether the U.S. central bank could stay on its current path towards monetary policy normalization.

The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rates unchanged earlier this week as it waited for more data to assess the U.S. economic outlook. But the Fed policymakers hinted at a possible rate hike in June.

Market expectations for a June rate hike were 78.5 percent, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool Friday.

This earnings season has been strong so far. The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2017 are expected to rise 14.7 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 7.2 percent.