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Stocks jumped out of the gate Friday after the release of the August jobs report. But enthusiasm from the few investors that stuck around ahead of the long holiday weekend didn't last, with all three indexes ending in the red.
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The Labor Department this morning said the U.S. added 315,000 new jobs in August, well below July's 526,000. Also in the jobs report: the unemployment rate edged up to 3.7% from 3.5%; the labor participation rate, or the number of people actively seeking work, improved to 62.4% from 62.1%; and average hourly earnings - a key measure of labor cost inflation - was up 5.2% year-over-year, same as it was in July.
"Friday's jobs data provided some moderate relief, with payrolls almost landing precisely on consensus at 315,000 in August," says Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets." While no doubt a solid advance - and completely inconsistent with recession chatter - other aspects of the report sent some calming signals." Porter points to steady wage growth, an increasing labor force and the rising unemployment rate that suggest "the extreme tightness in the job market may be beginning to moderate - almost exactly what the Fed doctor ordered."
Still, the major indexes, after being up more than 1% each around lunchtime, swung lower in afternoon trading after news reports indicated Russian energy giant Gazprom will indefinitely suspend operations of a natural-gas pipeline to Germany.
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By the close, the Nasdaq Composite was down 1
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