US losing more jobs.
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biz.yahoo.com
By 1435 GMT, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index of pan-European blue chips fell 1.08 percent and was on course to snap a four-day winning run, dragged down by a particularly weak London market, where the benchmark FTSE 100 shed more than 100 points or almost two percent.
The narrower DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index was 1.028 percent lower.
In the U.S., the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - news) fell 0.3 percent and the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite index (^IXIC - news) slipped 0.94 percent.
Some 331,000 jobs were wiped off U.S. non-farm payrolls last month, shunting the unemployment rate up to 5.7 percent. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a fall of just 190,000 and a jobless rate of 5.6 percent.
``It reinforces the general expectation that the Fed will cut again on Tuesday by 25 basis points and is something of a counter to the rather more robust figures we had earlier in the week,'' said Mark Cliffe, chief European economist at ING Barings.
Europe's benchmark indices had been only slightly below opening levels before the data was released.
The next statistical stepping stone for financial markets is the more forward-looking University of Michigan consumer sentiment indicator, due at 1500 GMT, shortly after Wall Street opens.
Analysts anticipate a preliminary reading of the Michigan index to rise to 84.1 against a previous 83.9.
Friday's payrolls data followed a number of mixed signals on the U.S. economy this week.
On Wednesday, NAPM manufacturing data came in well above the consensus estimate, raising hopes that economic recovery would come sooner rather than later.
But on Thursday, weekly jobless statistics and third quarter productivity data painted a more negative picture of the world's economic powerhouse. |
