The Dow fell 0.6% following a sharp decline in UnitedHealth shares after its CEO's death with traders cautious ahead of the jobs report.
The major averages eventually ended the day in negative territory. The Dow slid 248.33 points (0.6%) to 44,765.71 while the Nasdaq dipped 34.86 points (0.2%) to 19,700.26 and the S&P 500 edged down 11.38 points (0.2%) to 6,075.11.The more notable pullback by the Dow came amid a steep drop by shares of UnitedHealth (UNH) tumbled by 5.2% following yesterday's fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday. Economists currently expect employment to jump by 200,000 jobs in November after inching up by 12,000 jobs in October, while the unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 4.2% from 4.1%.
"Taken together, the October and November reports should show trend job growth continuing at a pace that allows the Fed to lower rates by 25bps at the December 18 FOMC meeting but we expect them to skip cutting rates in January," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.
The Labor Department released a report this morning showing a modest increase by first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended November 30th. The report said initial jobless claims rose to 224,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised level of 215,000.
Semiconductor stocks moved sharply lower dragging the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down by 1.9%. computer hardware stocks were weak as reflected by the 1.2% loss posted by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index. Healthcare and housing stocks also moved downwards while airline stocks surged, driving the NYSE Arca Airline Index up by 2.6
Asia-Pacific stocks turned in another mixed performance. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.3%, South Korea's Kospi slid by 0.9%. The major European markets all moved upwards on the day. The German DAX Index advanced by 0.6%, the French CAC 40 Index climbed by 0.4% and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index crept up by 0.2%.
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In the bond market, treasuries recovered from early weakness to end the session roughly flat. The yield on the benchmark ten-year note which moves opposite of its price, closed unchanged at 4.180% after reaching a high of 4.22%.
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