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Stock Market News for June 6, 2022

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U.S. stocks ended sharply lower on Friday as a better-than-expected jobs report reignited fears that the Fed would continue with its aggressive monetary policy and go for steep rate hikes in the coming months. All the major indexes ended in negative territory.

How Did The Benchmarks Perform?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) shed 1% or 348.58 points to close at 32,899.70 points.

The S&P 500 fell 1.6% or 68.28 points to finish at 4,108.54 points. Consumer discretionary and tech stocks were the worst performers.

The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (XLY) and the Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) declined 2.9% and 2.4%, respectively. Ten of the 11 sectors of the benchmark index ended in negative territory.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 2.5% or 304.16 points to end at 12,012.73 points.

The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was up 0.28% to 24.79. Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a 2.68-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 1.79-to-1 ratio favored declining issues. A total of 9.42 billion shares were traded on Friday, lower than the last 20-session average of 12.89 billion.

Steeper Rate Hike Fears Worry Investors

Stocks fell suffered once again on Friday on a holiday-shortened week as data showed nonfarm payrolls rose better than expected in May. This ate into expectations of the Fed slowing down on steep rate hikes in the coming months. The Fed has so far gone for rate hikes by 75 basis points in its last two meetings and steeper hikes are expected in the coming months in a bid to control decades-high inflation.

This at the same time reignited fears that steeper rate hikes could push the country into an economic slowdown. Investors, thus, couldn’t welcome the impressive jobs data on Friday. Growing worries of investors could be seen in the bond market, as investors aggressively sold Treasurys across the board.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose 5 basis points following the jobs report and crossed the 2.9% mark. Tech stocks were the biggest losers as a result of this. Shares of Apple Inc. (AAPL - Free Report) declined 3.9%, while Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) finished 2.5% lower. Apple has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Economic Data

The May jobs data released on Friday came in impressive but raised worries for investors. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the U.S. economy added 390,000 jobs in May, higher than economists’ expectations of a gain of 328,000.

Also, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.6% in May, slightly above the lowest level since December 1969. Average hourly wage gains also remained strong in May, increasing 0.3% from April, a shade lower than expectations of 0.4%. On a year-over-year basis, average hourly wages increased 5.2%, which came in line with expectations.

Weekly Roundup

All the three major indexes ended the week in the red. The Dow and the S&P 500 lost 0.9% and 1.2%, respectively, for the week. The Nasdaq, which fell into bear market earlier this year, ended 1% lower for the week.


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