The major U.S. stock markets headed down sharply Friday morning on the news that the economy added only 88,000 jobs in March, despite the official unemployment rate ticking down 0.1 percentage point to a four-year low of 7.6 percent.
The Dow Jones average of top stocks was off more than 160 points to 14,442.84 about 40 minutes after the markets opened on Wall Street, with just one of the 30 stocks in the index in positive territory.
The broader S&P index was down 17.8 points to 1542 and the tech-heavy NASDAQ index fell 47 points to 3177.86. Both the Dow and the S&P had set all-time highs in recent weeks, but the broader market was on its way to the worst weekly performance of the year following the jobs report announcement from the Labor Department.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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