NEW YORK — U.S. equities posted mixed results for the week as Wall Street parsed a slew of economic data.
For the week ending Friday, the Dow fell 0.2 percent, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained 0.6 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.
U.S. payroll data became a focus on Wall Street as the monthly employment report showed the U.S. economy added back jobs at a far slower pace in August.
Total nonfarm payroll employment in the United States rose by 235,000 last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal were expecting 720,000 jobs.
In August, notable job gains occurred in professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, private education, manufacturing, and other services, while employment in retail trade declined over the month, said the report.
U.S. nonfarm employment has risen by 17.0 million since April 2020 but is still down by 5.3 million, or 3.5 percent, from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020, according to the report.
“The Delta variant casting a shadow over leisure and hospitality and making some people reluctant to work, seasonal employers making do with the staff they had in July, and teachers not hired in August because they were already working in July,” were among the reasons that likely limited job growth in August, Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial, said Friday in a note.
Elsewhere, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported on Wednesday that private companies in the United States added 374,000 jobs in August, well short of market forecasts of a 600,000 gain, suggesting the COVID-19 Delta variant depressed hiring.
Investors were partly relieved as a separate report by the Department of Labor on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits fell to a fresh pandemic-era low last week.
U.S. initial jobless claims, a rough way to measure layoffs, decreased by 14,000 to 340,000 in the week ending Aug. 28. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had estimated new claims would total 345,000.
On the other economic front, the August U.S. manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) registered 59.9 percent, up from the July reading of 59.5 percent, the Institute for Supply Management reported on Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a reading of 58.6 percent. Any number above 50 percent indicates expansion in the sector.
The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index fell to 113.8 in August from the July reading of 125.1, New York-based The Conference Board reported on Tuesday. The reading marked the lowest level since February.
U.S. financial markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Labor Day.