Stocks Suffer Year’s Worst Day on Jobs Report
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — After a dismal May jobs report, U.S. stocks on Friday had their worst day in 2012, erasing the gains for the year and touching lows for a number of benchmarks.
The S&P 500 index fell nearly 2.5 percent to 1,278 as the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell over 2.8 percent to 2,747. The Nasdaq had its worst start to June on a point basis ever. The Dow Jones industrial average fell over 2.2 percent to 12,117.
Paul Larson, chief equities strategist with investment firm Morningstar, said while investor anxiety has sprung from a number of sources of late, Friday’s jobs report tipped the scales toward red.
The Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added 69,000 jobs in May, fewer than the 150,000 many economists had expected, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent.
Concern about Europe’s debt crisis and whether Greece will leave the euro zone currency union have clouded the U.S. economic recovery for the past several months.
“The market is on edge because of that and today we find that the economic recovery here in the United States while still progressing, is recovering quite anemically,” Larson said.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio