NEW YORK, New York – U.S. stocks and the U.S. dollar fell sharply Friday after the release of the February U.S. payrolls report.
The Nasdaq Composite dived 199.47 points or 1.76 percent to 11,138.89.
The Dow Jones industrials index plummeted 345.22 points or 1.07 percent to 31,909.64.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 weakened by 56.73 points or 1.45 percent to 3,861.59.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, fell 0.68 percent to 104.59.
In late New York trading, the euro jumped up to 1.0645 from 1.0577 in the previous session, while the British pound increased to 1.2031 versus 1.1911 dollars in the previous session.
The U.S. dollar bought 134.80 Japanese yen, sharply lower than 136.16 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar decreased to 0.9213 Swiss francs from 0.9358 Swiss francs, and it was up to 1.3829 Canadian dollars from 1.3823 Canadian dollars. The U.S. dollar decreased to 10.6866 Swedish Kronor from 10.7310 Swedish Kronor.
Total nonfarm payroll employment in the United States rose by 311,000 in February, and the unemployment rate edged up to 3.6 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast 225,000 new jobs.
Average hourly earnings were up 0.2 percent, less than the 0.3 percent consensus, showed the report.
“From a Fed policy viewpoint, any job gain of 300k or more is outsized, and because their focus is on service inflation, this report suggests pressure is still significant,” Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial, said in a note Friday.
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