By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A gauge of global stocks fell for a second straight day on Friday and was on pace for its worst week in more than two months, while the dollar continued to climb in the wake of the U.S. payrolls report.
U.S. job growth slowed in August as financial aid from the government was depleted, with nonfarm payrolls increasing by 1.371 million jobs versus the climb of 1.734 million in the prior month. Expectations were for the addition of 1.4 million jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 8.4% from 10.2%.
“It is a pretty healthy addition of jobs,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.
Kinahan said that while the report shows improvement, many areas of the labor market continue to suffer. “So yes it is great progress but it also shows we still have a long way to go.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 210.87 points, or 0.75%, to 28,503.6, the S&P 500 gained 7.35 points, or 0.21%, to 3,462.41 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 56.64 points, or 0.49%, to 11,401.46.
The three major Wall Street indexes saw their biggest drop since June on Thursday, led by a sell-off in technology shares.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index advanced in a choppy session following the U.S. payrolls report. Stocks had initially rebounded from their worst day in more than a month on gains in bank shares before losing steam to trade flat before the data.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.19% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.20%. The MSCI index was on track for its worst week since late June.
The U.S. dollar continued to recover from two-year lows hit earlier in the week and was poised for its best week since late April while the euro continued its decline after breaching the $1.20 mark on Tuesday.
The dollar index rose 0.29%, with the euro down 0.41% to $1.1801.
U.S. Treasury yields jumped on the heels of the jobs report.
Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 20/32 in price to yield 0.6853%, from 0.622% late on Thursday.
Oil prices continued to weaken on demand concerns and were on track for their worst week since mid-June.
U.S. crude recently fell 0.85% to $41.02 per barrel and Brent was at $43.72, down 0.79% on the day.
Graphic: Jobs fell off a cliff – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTION/ECONOMY-DATA/xlbvglzxepq/chart.png
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
The post World shares fall for second straight day, dollar gains continue appeared first on Morningology.
