Stocks Tumble Globally Even As U.S. Adds 678,000 Jobs

Stocks around the world are tumbling Friday, as even a gangbusters report on the US jobs market couldn’t pull Wall Street’s focus off its worries about the war in Ukraine, Stan Choe reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: All the movements around the globe came despite a much stronger report on US jobs, with 678,000.

The S&P 500 was 0.9% lower in early trading, following up on sharper losses in Europe after a fire at the continent’s largest nuclear plant caused by shelling raised worries about what’s next.

Treasury yields sank again as investors moved money into US government bonds in search of safety, and a measure of nervousness on Wall Street climbed roughly 10%.

All the movements came despite a much stronger report on US jobs, with 678,000 positions filled, the New York Times reported, a figure much better than what economists expected.

Hiring by employers last month topped expectations by hundreds of thousands of workers, more people came back into the workforce after sitting on the sidelines and jobs numbers for prior months were revised higher.

“The COVID recovery was in full bloom in the jobs report,” said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Allspring Global Investments.

“The tricky part is the future, not the past,” he said, as crude oil prices climbed back above $112 per barrel and wheat prices in the U.S. climbed another 6.6% amid worries about pressure on supplies because of the Ukrainian war.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 269 points, or 0.8%, to 33,525, as of 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite was 0.8% lower.

In Europe, whose economy is much more closely tied to the conflict because of its dependence on oil and natural gas from the region, losses were sharper. France’s CAC 40 fell 3.9%, Germany’s DAX lost 3.7% and FTSE 100 in London fell 2.6%.

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