Wall Street concluded Friday's session even lower as more negative economic data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics demonstrated the warning signs of coming economic devastation amid the still growing coronavirus pandemic. Based on the agency's employment statistics for early March, total nonfarm payrolls fell by 701,000 and the unemployment raised to 4.4%. This report reflects data collected only through March 12, before must of the country entered stay-at-home orders and many companies furloughed employees. March is beginning to look like the end of the strong jobs market the United States had maintained during the recent record bull market.
For the week, The S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones fell over 2% and the Nasdaq dropped by 1.7%, signaling that investors are moving away from coronavirus fears to unemployment level concerns.
Here's how the stock market ended another volatile week:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): -1.51% or -38.25 points to 2,488.65
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): -1.69% or -360.91 points to 21,052.53
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -1.53% or -114.23 points to 7,373.08
In Major Stock News, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) share rose after the electric car company produced about 88,400 vehicles in the first quarter of 2020, beating expectations of 79,900 vehicles. 3M (NYSE: MMM) was warned on Friday by President Donald Trump to stop exporting respirator masks to countries outside of the United States, but the manufacturing giant retorted that a halt in exporting would lead to less masks available in the United States and harm humanitarian efforts. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) launched a new website that uses anonymous location data collected from Google products to show the level of social distancing taking place in over 131 countries. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) begun accepting applications for small business loans on Friday, with Bank of America stating that half way through the day over $6 billion in loans were requested.
In Stock Sector News, every sector expect Consumer Staples +0.54% posted negative performance on Friday. The losses were as follows: Utilities -3.62%, Materials -2.34%, Financials -2.23%, Communication Services -2.20%, Information Technology -1.65%, Industrials -1.55%, Consumer Discretionary -1.47%, Energy -1.34%, Health Care -0.96% and Real Estate -0.76%.
In Commodity and Currency News, President Trump vowed on Friday that the U.S. energy sectors will recover from March's steep sell-off. West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) soared over 17% and Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) increased over +16.8%, bringing crude's price per gallon between $29-$35 each. Gold (NYSE: GLD) also continues to increase as trading ends for the week, with the metal's price gaining +0.26%. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) ended Friday with the DXY Index increasing +0.57%.