A weak jobs report put Wall Street on shaky footing Friday morning, and while things improved in the afternoon, it still ended up being a rough day all around:
- The Dow fell 610 points, or 1.5%, to 39,737.
- The S&P 500 fell 100 points, or 1.8%, to 5,346.
- The Nasdaq fell 417 points, or 2.4%, to 16,776. Friday's losses for tech stocks dragged the Nasdaq composite down by more than 10% from its record set in the middle of last month, per the AP. That puts it in "correction" territory, notes CNBC.
Not helping: Several big technology companies turned in underwhelming profit reports, which continued a mostly dispiriting run that began last week with results from Tesla and Alphabet. Amazon fell 9% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than expected. Intel dropped even more, 26%, after the chip company's profit for the latest quarter fell well short of forecasts. It also suspended its dividend payment and said it expects to lose money in the third quarter, when analysts were expecting a profit. Apple was holding steadier, up 2%, after reporting better profit and revenue than expected.
Worries are rising the Fed may have kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for too long. Traders are now betting on a nearly three-in-four chance that the Fed will cut its main interest rate by half a percentage point in September, according to data from CME Group. Still, not all the views were grim. "Certainly today's job data feeds the weakening economy narrative, but I believe the market is overreacting at this point and pricing too much in on rate cuts at this stage," said Nate Thooft of Manulife Investment Management. "Yes, the economy is weakening, but I am not convinced there is enough evidence that the data so far is a death knell for the economy."
(More
stock market stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
