Stocks declined heavily in Friday trading following a weaker-than-expected jobs report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 810 points, or 2.3%. The S&P 500 dropped 2.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 3.1%.
The U.S. added just 114,000 jobs in July, well below the 185,000 expected and down significantly from 206,000 in June.
The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, from 4.1%.
The bad data kept rolling in Friday morning, as factory orders fell 3.3%, according to the U.S. Commerce Department — the biggest decline since April 2020 at the outset of the pandemic.
Friday’s sell-off pushed the Nasdaq index, which represents tech stocks, into correction territory, down more than 10% from an all-time high set just a month ago. And the S&P’s drop was its biggest since 2022.
Leading Friday’s pullback was Intel, which cratered 29% after announcing weak guidance and layoffs. Amazon also saw a large decline, sliding 12.5% after missing quarterly financial estimates and issuing a disappointing forecast.
Friday represented the second-consecutive day of a major market sell-off. A day earlier, stocks saw heavy declines as they responded to other weaker-than-expected data, including a disappointing manufacturing output report and surprisingly high initial jobless claims.
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