The Dow is taking a hit today due to bad news on several fronts:
Stocks plunged after the sharpest jump in the unemployment rate in more than 20 years and news that wholesale inventories ballooned. Oil jumped more than $6 a barrel.
The employment report showed that U.S. employers cut jobs for a fifth straight month. Nonfarm payrolls shed 49,000 jobs in May, better than the 58,000-decline expected. April was revise to show 8,000 more job losses than previously expected. The unemployment rate shot up to 5.5 percent from 5 percent in April, the biggest monthly jump since 1986.
“I’ve been trading these markets for 25 years; to see a jump like this is a little scary,” Jack Bouroudjian of Brewer Investment Group told CNBC. “But, these markets have already factored in that weakness.”
The market’s initial knee-jerk was a sharp sell-off but economists pointed out that the historically high jump in the unemployment rate was likely a statistical fluke.