Wall Street’s three major indices on Friday edged lower in a choppy session as investors grappled with a weaker-than-expected US jobs report, a US airstrike in Syria and a top US Federal Reserve official’s comments on trimming the US central bank’s balance sheet.
Investors were trying to work out how the developments would affect US President Donald Trump’s ability to proceed with his pro-business agenda.
The market rallied sharply after Trump’s Nov. 8 last year election on his promises for tax cuts, spending and lighter regulation, but investors increasingly have been questioning whether the proposals would ever materialize.
Photo: AFP
“You had so many confusing things happening today. The employment number was certainly surprising. The US airstrike was surprising. People were trying to figure out what that meant,” said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 6.85 points, or 0.03 percent, to 20,656.1, the S&P 500 lost 1.95 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,355.54 and the NASDAQ Composite dropped 1.14 points, or 0.02 percent, to 5,877.81.
For the week, the Dow lost 0.03 percent, the S&P retreated 0.3 percent and the NASDAQ Composite lost 0.6 percent.
US employers last month added about 98,000 jobs, the fewest since May last year and well below economists’ expectation of 180,000, as bad weather hit construction hiring.
However, wage growth edged up and unemployment fell.
New York Fed President William Dudley on Friday shed more light on the US central bank’s developing plan for when to stop replacing bonds that expire in its portfolio, how to execute it and how far it would ultimately shrink its balance sheet.
US Treasury yields rose after Dudley’s remarks, which helped push equities lower, said Paul Zemsky, chief investment officer of multi-asset strategies and solutions at Voya Investment Management in New York.
LibertyView’s Meckler said Dudley’s remarks were not earth-shattering, but “small statements are having a magnified effect because investors are worried.”
The US, in a pre-dawn strike, fired missiles at an airfield from which it said a deadly poison gas attack was launched on Tuesday.
In the coming days it “will be interesting to watch to see if [Syria] does grab more attention from the White House and delay some of these other issues and programs they are trying to get passed through here,” said Sean Lynch, co-head of global equity strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in Omaha, Nebraska.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 1.11-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ, a 1.03-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 11 new 52-week highs and two new lows. The NASDAQ Composite recorded 53 new highs and 46 new lows.
About 5.97 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges on Friday, compared with the 6.75 billion average for the past 20 sessions.
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