by Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange, once buoyed by activity in the U.S. services sector, ended lower on Thursday ahead of the official monthly employment report on Friday.
The Dow Jones index fell 0.54%, or 219.22 points, to 40,755.75 points.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 lost -16.66 points, or -0.30%, to 5,503.41 points.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 43.37 points, or 0.25%, to 17,127.661 points.
The Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor’s 500 were in the green for a while, supported in particular by activity in the services sector in the United States.
The country’s ISM services index came in at 51.5 in August from 51.4 in July, compared with a consensus of 51.1, suggesting that the economy is continuing to grow, albeit at a moderate pace compared to last year, which has partly eased fears of a recession.
A little over an hour before Wall Street opened, the monthly survey by the ADP consultancy showed that the private sector in the United States had created fewer jobs than expected in August, or 99,000, the lowest figure in three and a half years.
This is a further sign of the rapid deterioration in the labour market after the monthly Jolts survey on job openings was published on Wednesday, while the official monthly employment report will be released on Friday.
However, weekly unemployment claims in the United States fell last week to 227,000, maintaining a slight hope for employment, even if this indicator is subject to revision.
Investors are concerned that the weakness of the latest macroeconomic data in the United States is a harbinger of a deep recession and not of a soft landing for the economy as hoped so far.
In stocks, Tesla ended up nearly 5% after announcing that it would launch its fully autonomous driving assistance software (FSD) in the first quarter of 2025 in Europe and China, subject to regulatory approval.
Verizon ended down 0.4% after it said it would buy Frontier Communications, which fell 10%, in an all-cash deal worth $20 billion, or $38.50 per share.
JetBlue Airways climbed 7% after raising its third-quarter growth forecast.
(Zhifan Liu for the )
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