Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones fell 1.26%, the Nasdaq lost 1.28% and the S&P 500 fell 1.29%.
The New York Stock Exchange fell at the opening on Friday, worried regarding fighting in Ukraine and despite a strong employment report in the United States.
Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones fell 1.26%, the Nasdaq lost 1.28% and the S&P 500 fell 1.29%.
The day before, Wall Street, which at this rate is preparing to close another week at half mast, had finished in the red.
The Dow Jones was down 0.29% at 33,794.66 points, the Nasdaq was down 1.56% at 13,537.94 points, and the S&P 500 was down 0.53% at 4,363 , 49 points.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was convened on Friday following Russian bombardments overnight on Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.
The Russian army occupies the central Zaporozhye, the largest in Europe, hit by artillery strikes, in southern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian regulator.
For its part, NATO on Friday rejected Kiev’s request to create a no-fly zone in Ukraine to avoid being drawn into the conflict.
“The stock market is in trouble this morning, largely due to the worsening of events in Ukraine with the intensification of the Russian military attack and the capture of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which provides a quarter of the Ukrainian electricity,” commented Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.
The seriousness of the situation in Ukraine “has largely overshadowed the employment report”, noted the analyst.
The US labor market remained solid in February with plethora of job creations and unemployment still falling, thanks to the remoteness of the pandemic.
The US economy added some 678,000 jobs in February following 481,000 in January (revised upwards), according to data from the Labor Department. This is much more than the 400,000 expected by analysts.
In addition, the unemployment rate fell more than expected to 3.8%, following 4% the previous month.
These good figures do not change market expectations on the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve (Fed), according to analysts.
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans told CNBC that the “good news” did “nothing” to change Fed boss Jerome Powell’s position to Congress this week that he favors a hike. rate of a quarter of a percentage point (0.25%).
In terms of equities, the clothing store chain Gap gleaned 0.14% to 14.27 dollars following announcing a smaller loss than expected in the fourth quarter and sales up, but still less solid than before the Covid-19 pandemic.
