Traders initially cheered a weaker than expected jobs report Friday, then spent the rest of the day selling stocks on fears that the report contained just a little too much inflation pressure to keep the Federal Reserve from ending its rate-hike campaign next week.
The Labor Department reported that the economy added 113,000 new jobs last month as the unemployment rate crept up to 4.8%, numbers that were weaker than expected. But stronger than anticipated wage growth of 0.4% fueled fears that the Fed may still not be done raising interest rates.
Traders will have to wait until Tuesday afternoon to see what the Fed does, but fed futures traders were leaning toward no rate hike after Friday’s jobs report. That would mark the first meeting without a rate hike by the Fed since May 2004.
Among tech stocks, Applied Micro, Cbeyond, Anaren, Leap Wireless, Oplinkand WebMDgained on their results.
Gateway, Maximand WebSideStoryfell on their earnings reports.
Applelost ground on news that it may restate results as the result of a stock option probe.
The Nasdaq lost 7 to 2085, the S&P 500 slipped 1 to 1279, and the Dow gave back 2 to 11,240. Volume declined to 2.6 billion shares on the NYSE, but rose to 1.89 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 18-14 on the NYSE, while decliners led 17-12 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 54% on the NYSE, and 59% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 196-64 on the NYSE, and 106-109 on the Nasdaq.