At closing bell on Thursday, the Dow Jones was down by 366.38 points, a 1.07% loss to finish at 33,922.26. The Nasdaq Composite fell by 112.61 points, declining by 0.82% to close at 13,679.04. The S&P 500 also posted a loss of 35.23 points, falling by 0.79% to close at 4,411.59.
The yield on 2-year and 10-year US Treasury bonds both increased after the news, part of a 16-month-long trend economists call an inverted yield curve and see as one of the most accurate predictors of an impending recession.
The trend began when the Fed started raising interest rates in March 2022 in an effort to fight inflation; however, doing so can also trigger a rise in unemployment and even stall the economy entirely, making investors wary of such a trend.
However, the jobs report wasn’t the only thing ailing Wall Street on Thursday. JetBlue Airlines lost 6% of its value after it announced it was ending its partnership with American Airlines, called the Northeast Alliance, which a federal judge recently ruled was anticompetitive. Instead, JetBlue will focus on its acquisition of Spirit Airlines, which saw its stock increase slightly at the news. While JetBlue said it will not appeal the ruling, AA said it still intends to.
Stock in UPS also continued its decline, falling 1.2% on Thursday after a 2% drop on Wednesday, which was triggered by news that negotiations with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters had collapsed. The union contract is due to expire at the end of the month, and the union has already voted to strike if a new one isn’t hammered out. UPS moves an estimated 6% of the US economy.