Data bring stocks down in final hour

NEW YORK (AP) — A period of relative calm on Wall Street ended Thursday as stocks tumbled in the final hour of trading on growing investor anxiety about the government’s November employment report.

The major indexes each fell more than 2.5 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which dropped 216 points after rising in seven of the last eight sessions.

It was clear that investors were worrying that Friday’s employment report would show a further deterioration in the job market; employers have already cut 1.2 million jobs this year through October, leaving the unemployment rate at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent. Economists expect the Labor Department will report that the jobless rate rose to 6.8 percent in November and that companies cut an additional 320,000 jobs.

“It’s all about jobs, and right now the outlook is pretty downbeat,” said Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist with Edward Jones in St. Louis.

Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial Services, said many institutional investors are bracing for the jobs report to show 400,000 jobs were lost from the economy. Anything worse than that number could cause a steep drop in the market, he said, while anything above could “stoke renewed selling.”

“The market has been very reactionary to the data points, particularly key economic indicators like the employment report due out on Friday,” he said. “The day is made in the last hour.”

The late-session decline followed a decent run for stocks, which closed higher in seven of the previous eight sessions.