Wall Street is getting its own kind of reprieve Friday, and U.S. stocks are holding relatively steady after a nervously anticipated report on the U.S. job market came in close to expectations.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading following a punishing stretch where it swung at least 1%, up or down, in each of the last six days. It’s on track for its worst week since September.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 51 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m., and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.
The market’s focus was on the job market, where the U.S. Labor Department said employers added 151,000 more jobs last month than they cut. That was slightly below economists’ expectations, but it was still an acceleration from January’s hiring.
“To sum it up: today’s print wasn’t as bad as feared,” according to Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
That helped calm worries sparked by a run of weaker-than-expected reports on the U.S. economy, for now at least.
The whiplash actions from the White House on tariffs — first placing them on trading partners, then exempting some and then doing it again — have raised uncertainty for businesses. That sparked fears they might simply freeze in response and pull back on hiring. U.S. households, meanwhile, are bracing for much higher inflation because of tariffs, which is weakening their confidence and could hold back their spending. That would sap more energy from the economy.
All those discouraging trends came through in recent surveys, but economists weren’t sure if the souring moods were yet translating into real pain for the economy and the job market.
But economists said Friday’s job report did include concerning details underneath the surface, which could imply more troubling data in future months. The number of people working part-time who would rather be full-time rose 10% in February from January, for example.
“The market might breathe a sigh of relief that the labor market was still looking healthy, but a deeper dive shows that spring could be a more challenging season,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
The jobs report caused a bigger reaction in the bond market, where the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.24% from 4.28% late Thursday.
The yield has been sinking since January, when it was nearing 4.80%, as investors have ratcheted back their expectations for the U.S. economy’s growth.
The yield on the two-year Treasury note also continued its descent, which underscores building expectations among traders that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate at least two or three times this year in order to prop up a slowing economy.
On Wall Street, Broadcom rose 4.5% after delivering stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It’s a bounce back after falling more than 20% so far this year. It had more than doubled in 2024.
The chip company also gave a forecast for upcoming revenue that topped analysts’ expectations in part on strong demand for its artificial-intelligence offerings. After rocketing higher in Wall Street’s frenzy in recent years, AI-related stocks have hit a wall as this year’s downturn for the market has focused on areas that had earlier been seeing waves of momentum-driven players piling in.
Walgreens Boots Alliance jumped 7.5% after the pharmacy and drugstore chain agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for about $10 billion. The buyout would take the struggling chain private for the first time since 1927 and give it more flexibility to make changes to improve its business without worrying about Wall Street’s reaction.
In stock markets abroad, German stocks tumbled 2.3% to give back some of its big gains won this week following a seismic shift in its policy on debt. The traditionally debt-averse German government appears willing to allow for much more borrowing.
Indexes fell 0.6% in Hong Kong and 0.3% in Shanghai after China reported slower than expected trade for January-February, with exports growing just 2.3% and imports sinking 8.4%, the government said. China’s trade data for the first two months of the year are usually combined to make up for distortions from Lunar New Year holidays.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.5% after a court ordered impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol to be released from jail, more than a month after he was arrested and indicted over his short-lived imposition of martial law.
