U.S. stocks trimmed sharp losses seen early Friday after a much stronger than expected reading on July employment reinforced expectations for the Federal Reserve to keep aggressively raising interest rates in its bid to rein in inflation.What’s happening
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.36%
fell 20 points, or 0.1%, to 32,707.
The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.70%
was down 10 points, or 0.2%, at 4,143.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-1.10%
shed 44 points, or 0.3%, to trade at 12,677.
Stocks logged a mixed finish on Thursday, with the Dow losing 85.68 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P 500 edged down 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%.
Market drivers The U.S. economy added 528,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department reported, far exceeding the 258,000 consensus estimate. The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5% from 3.6%, while average hourly earnings climbed 15 cents, or 0.5%, to $32.27. Announcements of layoffs by a number of high profile companies had earlier raised concerns that a robust labor market may be softening. The data triggered a sharp rise in U.S. Treasury yields and a selloff in stock-index futures that translated into a sharply lower opening in cash trading as investors priced in prospects of further jumbo-sized rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. But stocks demonstrated resilience in morning trade, with analysts arguing that …