Wall Street’s recovery was hit hard after a shocking jobs report showed the US economy added a third of a million jobs last month more than expected, raising concerns about inflation and higher interest rates. The S&P 500 fell 1% in early Friday trading and is on track to fall for the first time in three days of strong gains. The Dow fell 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was 1.7% lower. Treasury yields rose sharply. Markets headed for a lower open after some of Wall Street’s most influential companies late Thursday reported weaker-than-expected results.
Weaker-than-expected financial performance from some of the country’s biggest tech companies has followed WE Markets were lower early Friday and a hot monthly jobs report shortly sent futures contracts even lower.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.5% while the S&P 500 fell 1%. Tech-heavy Nasdaq futures fell 1.8 percent in after-hours trading after three tech moguls — Apple, Amazon and Alphabet — posted lackluster quarterly results after Thursday’s close. .
U.S. employers added 517,000 jobs in January, a surprisingly strong increase given the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to slow growth and tame inflation with higher interest rates.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, a new half-century low.
Many tech companies have announced layoffs recently, but the government’s weekly jobless claims report on Thursday suggested early on that job cuts were uncommon. Fewer workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than expected, and the number fell to its lowest level since April. There are still nearly two jobs available for every unemployed American.
Stocks have rallied since the start of the year on hopes that the US Federal Reserve might pause interest rate hikes soon. Such increases help quell inflation but also make it more expensive for businesses and households to borrow, slowing the economy.
Tech companies surged on Thursday, one after another Facebook The parent meta, jumped 23% after it reported late Wednesday that its revenue beat Wall Street expectations and announced $40 billion worth of stock buybacks.
But after the bell, Apple posted a first-quarter revenue drop in nearly four years, Amazon reported a worse-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, and Google’s parent company Alphabet reported a 34 percent drop in profit. Shares of the three companies fell from 2.6% to 3.6% a few hours before Friday’s bell.
Dismal tech results and overnight losses dragged most markets in Asia and Europe lower.
At midday, Germany’s DAX was down 0.6%, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.2% and Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.2%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 0.4 percent to 27,509.46. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.6% to 7,558.10. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5% to 2,480.40. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.4% to 21,660.47, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.7% to 3,263.41.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which helps set interest rates on mortgages and other key loans, fell to 3.40% from 3.42% late Wednesday. The two-year yield, based more on expectations for the Fed, was kept at 4.10%.
In energy trading, the price of U.S. benchmark crude fell 13 cents to $75.75 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 21 cents to $81.96 a barrel in London.
In currency trading, the US dollar fell to 128.43 Japanese yen from 129.67 yen. The euro is priced at $1.0936, up from $1.0914.
This story has been published from the electronic agency’s feed without any modification to the text.
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