NASDAQ-Adv: 1,704 Dec: 2,811 NYSE-Adv: 1,737 Dec: 2,338 (Source: Nasdaq)
U.S. stocks ended the trading week on a bearish note on Friday as early gains from a jobs report that showed a labor market may be starting to ease gave way to worries about the global crisis. gas in Europe.
Wall Street opened sharply higher after August’s U.S. payrolls report showed stronger-than-expected hiring, but a rise in the jobless rate to 3.7% eased some concerns that that the Federal Reserve was too aggressive in raising interest rates as it tries to bring down high inflation. .
However, the gains were wiped out after Gazprom (GAZP.MM), the state-controlled company that has a monopoly on Russian gas exports to Europe through a pipeline that was due to restart on Saturday, said it could not safely resume deliveries until it repaired an oil leak found in a vital turbine and gave a new deadline.
“Certainly the afternoon overshadowing the good data this morning, the afternoon was stolen from us by these headlines outside of Europe,” said Zach Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments in Charlotte. , North Carolina.
Analysts also pointed to weak trading volumes ahead of the long holiday weekend, helping to exaggerate market movements.
“The setup is important, there has been some optimism around the European energy picture over the past week or so, long-term electricity prices have fallen by almost half in some cases and signs that the “Germany had nearly 80% of its storage full of gas, so what we’re seeing is a small positioning adjustment in that environment coupled with low liquidity on Friday afternoon into a holiday weekend,” Hill said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 337.98 points, or 1.07%, to 31,318.44; the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 42.59 points, or 1.07%, to 3,924.26; and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) fell 154.26 points, or 1.31%, to 11,630.86.
Markets are closed Monday for Labor Day.
Energy (.SPNY) was the only major S&P sector to end the session in positive territory, up 1.81%.
As payrolls beat expectations, average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from estimates of 0.4%, while the unemployment rate edged up to 3.7% from a low of 3.5% before the pandemic, indicating that the Fed’s efforts to anticipate rate hikes were starting to take effect.
Wage growth data seen as important to Fed deliberations on raising interest rates as central bank seeks to bring inflation, at its highest level in four decades, back to its target by 2%. Expectations for a third consecutive 75 basis point hike from the central bank at its September meeting fell to 56%, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, from 75% the previous day.
Attention now shifts to August’s consumer price report due out mid-month, the latest important data available ahead of the Fed’s September 20-21 policy meeting.
Fears of an aggressive policy tightening dragged stocks down after hitting a four-month high in mid-August, with the S&P 500 (.SPX) falling about 7% since the day before the hawkish remarks by the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last week on rate hikes. His views were later echoed by other policy makers.
The three major indexes suffered their third consecutive weekly loss, with the Dow Jones falling 2.99%, the S&P 500 3.29% and the Nasdaq 4.21%.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.95 billion shares, compared to an average of 10.48 billion for the full session over the past 20 trading days.
Falling issues outnumbered rising ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 1.34 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a 1.65-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted three new 52-week highs and 14 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 47 new highs and 184 new lows.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
