US markets end mostly lower on Wednesday

07 May 2020 Evaluate

The US markets ended mostly lower on Wednesday as investors pored over data showing a collapse in private-sector employment in April. Private sector employment nosedived in the month of April, according to a report released by payroll processor ADP. The report said private sector employment plunged by 20.236 million jobs in April. Street had expected employment to tumble by 20.050 million jobs compared to the loss of 27,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. ADP noted the report utilizes data through the 12th of the month, the same as the Labor Department's monthly jobs survey, and does not reflect the full impact of COVID-19 on the overall employment situation. The nosedive in private sector employment reflected job losses throughout the economy, with employment in the service-providing sector plummeting by more than 16 million jobs and employment in the goods-producing sector plunging more than 4 million jobs.

Besides, investors parsed corporate quarterly updates from some of the nation’s largest companies, with Walt Disney Company’s profit diving more than 90% in the second quarter due to the hit from the pandemic on the entertainment giant. A decrease by the price of gold also contributed to considerable weakness among gold stocks, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index plummeting by 3.5 percent. Meanwhile, the coronavirus has infected 3.6 million people world-wide, and a third of that figure is in the US alone, according to data supplied by Johns Hopkins University. More than 250,000 lives have been lost globally.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 218.45 points or 0.91 percent to 23,664.64 and S&P 500 was down by 20.02 points or 0.7 percent to 2,848.42, while Nasdaq rose 45.27 points 0.51 percent to 8,854.39.

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