Stocks close lower Friday after a 'wow' jobs report puts Fed back in play
U.S. stock indexes finished lower on Friday after an unexpectedly...
U.S. stock indexes finished lower on Friday after an unexpectedly strong surge in January nonfarm payrolls reversed the Wall Street's perception that the end of the Fed's rate increases is near. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.38% was off 128 points, or 0.4%, to end at 33,925, while the S&P 500 SPX, -1.04% declined by 1% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -1.59% dropped 1.6%. For the week, the S&P 500 booked a weekly gain of 1.6%. The Nasdaq rose 3.3%, booking its fifth consecutive weekly advance and the longest winning streak in over a year, thanks to strong earnings from some major tech companies. The Dow industrials erased its earlier gain and slipped 0.3% this week, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The U.S. unemployment rate is now at its lowest level since 1969
The numbers: The number of new jobs created in January rose by 517,000 to mark the biggest...
The numbers: The number of new jobs created in January rose by 517,000 to mark the biggest increase in six months, suggesting little erosion in a dynamic U.S. labor market even though the economy has shown lots of signs of weakening.
One caveat: The government’s formula to adjust for seasonal swings in hiring sometimes exaggerates employment levels in January. It’s unclear whether that was the case last month.
Yet employment grew even faster in the waning months of 2022 than previously reported, indicating the labor market is still quite robust.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, slid to a 54-year low of 3.4% from 3.5%, the government said Friday. That’s the lowest level since 1969.
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