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Transportation stocks rose Friday as equities markets rallied following the government’s report that the unemployment rate fell to a four-year low 7.5%.

Factory orders fell 4% in March, the biggest drop since August, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

An index of the U.S. economy’s service sector declined in April but showed continued expansion, the Institute for Supply Management said Friday.

Two component makers reported lower first-quarter results compared with the same period last year.

YRC Worldwide Friday reported positive first-quarter operating income, the first time it has reported a first-quarter operating profit in six years.

Most leading suppliers to the trucking industry that reported earnings late last month said profits declined, or turned to losses, in the first three months of 2013.

Trade experts assessing a federal appeals court’s recent affirmation of the United States’ cross-border trucking pilot program with Mexico could not agree whether it paved the way for a rush of new Mexican carriers.

The national diesel price average declined another 3.6 cents last week, continuing a two-month slide that has seen the average retail cost of trucking’s main fuel fall 30.8 cents in the past two months.

Sales of used Class 8 trucks in March reached their highest level since October despite coming in 18.2% short of the sales volume reached in March last year, ACT Research reported.