US stocks fall as tech sell-off continues
New York: US stocks finished lower after choppy trading as investors continued to rotate out of tech-related shares.
On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 159.42 points, or 0.56 per cent, to end at 28,133.31, after trading more than 600 points lower earlier in the session. The S&P 500 decreased 28.10 points, or 0.81 per cent, to 3,426.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 144.97 points, or 1.27 per cent, to 11,313.13, Xinhua news agency reported.
Major tech stocks struggled. Shares of Facebook, Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet all lost more than 2 per cent. Netflix and Microsoft slipped 1.8 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively.
The S&P 500 tech sector sank 1.34 per cent, following a 5.83-per cent drop in the previous session.
US-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower, with six of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P US Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.
Investors pored through the newly-released US jobs data.
US employers added 1.4 million jobs in August, and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.4 per cent, as the nation’s pandemic-ravaged labor market continues to slowly recover, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting growth of 1.32 million and the jobless rate to decline to 9.8 per cent from 10.2 per cent in July.
The US unemployment rate previously soared to a record 14.7 per cent in April. Payrolls are still about 11 million below pre-pandemic levels.
Wall Street wrapped up its worst session in months on Thursday that saw the Dow shed more than 800 points amid tech rout.