Stocks tank on a brutal jobs report and another surge in oil prices
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- The February jobs report shocked markets, with 92,000 job losses, compared to forecasts of 55,000 hires.
- The labor market is stumbling at a time when markets are also worried about inflation from the Iran war.
- The Dow lost 450 points, and the Nasdaq fell nearly 2% in the session.
Stocks tanked again on Friday, with bad news in the job market piling on to fears about surging oil prices amid the Iran war.
The US lost 92,000 jobs in February, badly missing estimates of 55,000 payroll additions. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4%.
The year has been marked by a spate of layoff announcements in tech, most recently from Block. Meanwhile, some sectors that been bright spots for hiring saw payrolls decline. Healthcare lost 28,000 jobs last month, though the sector was impacted by a strike of workers from the Kaiser Permanente hospital system.
Meanwhile, oil prices are still rising as the US-Iran conflict escalates, sparking even more economic uncertainty and predictions for inflation to spike.
Brent crude spiked 9% to above $92.80 a barrel, while US oil jumped 12% to around $91.
Investors have begun to fear a stagflationary scenario as higher oil prices dent economic activity while pushing up consumer prices. Gas prices at the pump have already spiked this week.
Here's where major indexes stood at the 4 p.m. ET closing bell on Friday:
- S&P 500: 6,740.02, down 1.33%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 47,501.55, down 1% (-453.19 points)
- Nasdaq Composite: 22,387.68, down 1.59%
Jeff Schulze, head of economic and market strategy at ClearBridge Investments, said that February jobs data creates a highly negative outlook for the US labor market, which he views as stuck in a dangerous place.
"Today's release puts the Fed between a rock and a hard place as the labor market remains at stall speed but inflationary pressures are building due to both events in the Middle East and continued firm wages, which came in 10 bps ahead of expectations this morning," he said.
Brad Conger, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Hirtle Callaghan, noted that while he doesn't think AI is replacing jobs, layoffs are funding companies' new AI expansions.
"February's employment report resumed the trend of a weakening labor market from last year," he stated. "Block's (XYZ) decision to lay off 40% of its workforce is a sign of the job bloat in the economy."
Brad Smith, a portfolio manager from Janus Henderson
acknowledged the pain of the February jobs report for markets, though he was slightly more optimistic in his assessment.
"While a negative sign for the labor market narrative, there are one time events in the month that make the print less useful," he noted." Labor strikes, adverse weather and benchmark methodology revisions all cloud the signal from this single data point. Averaging the strong print from January and this print shows a labor market that is tepid and below replacement in line with the "low hire low fire" economy."