Why the November Jobs Report Sent Wall Street Lower Friday
The stock market moved lower on Friday morning, and the biggest impact came from the release of the latest government report on the employment situation. Coming out at 8:30 a.m. ET, the report led to an immediate decline in stock market futures before the beginning of the regular trading session. When markets opened, major market benchmarks dropped as much as 1.5% in the first half hour of trading.
Based on the reaction from the markets, it would be reasonable for investors to assume that there was some sort of bad news in the jobs report. Yet one thing that market participants have to come to grips with is that sometimes what sounds like good news can have a negative impact on the stock market. That's what happened Friday morning, and it shows that most investors are focused on what the Federal Reserve is likely to do with interest rate policy in the coming months.
Early Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its employment situation report for the month of November. The headline numbers showed greater strength in the labor market than most economists had anticipated. The U.S. economy generated 263,000 new nonfarm jobs during November. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, stayed at 3.7%, unchanged from its level in October.
Source Fool.com
