NEW YORK (AP) — Bond yields touched their lowest level of the year and the dollar’s value dipped Friday after the nation’s job growth slowed more than expected last month. Stock indexes hugged close to their record highs.
KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dipped by 1 point, or less than 0.1 percent, to 2,429, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time. It had been up by 3 points earlier in the day.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 2 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 21,142, and the Nasdaq composite rose 12 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,259. All three indexes set records on Thursday.
INTEREST RATES: Bond yields fell immediately following the release of Friday’s jobs report. After sitting at roughly 2.20 percent shortly before the 8:30 a.m. release, the yield on the 10-year yield Treasury sank as low as 2.15 percent within 20 minutes. That’s its lowest level since mid-November. It pared its loss to sit at 2.16 percent, down from 2.21 percent late Thursday.
The two-year Treasury yield fell to 1.27 percent from 1.30 percent, and the 30-year yield fell to 2.83 percent from 2.86 percent.
THE JOB MARKET: Employers added 138,000 jobs last month, short of economists’ expectations. The government also said that hiring was weaker in March and April than it had earlier reported, and pay raises remain middling with average hourly earnings up 2.5 percent over the past year.
Economists aren’t sure how much of the weakness in the report was due to seasonal issues, or whether it indicates a longer-term trend. Still, many say they don’t expect it to dissuade the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates again at its next policy meeting in two weeks. The central bank has been trying to pull rates gradually off their record low following the Great Recession, and it has raised rates twice since December.
LOW ENERGY: Energy stocks deepened their losses for 2017 after the price of oil sank. Benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 92 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $47.44 per barrel. Brent crude, used to price international oils, sank 84 cents to $49.79 per barrel.
Energy stocks in the S&P 500 lost 0.8 percent Friday, the biggest loss among the 11 sectors that make up the index. They’re down nearly 14 percent for the year when the overall index is up 8.5 percent.
Transocean fell 22 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $9.01, and Marathon Oil lost 30 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $12.80.
BANK PAIN: Friday’s drop in interest rates hurt financial stocks, because higher rates would have allowed banks to charge more for loans make bigger profits. Financial stocks in the S&P 500 fell 0.8 percent.
COMMODITIES: Gold rose $7.80 to $1,227.90 per ounce, silver added 12 cents to $17.40 per ounce and copper lost 3 cents to $2.56 per pound.
CURRENCIES: The dollar fell to 110.54 Japanese yen from 111.33 yen late Thursday. The euro rose to $1.1273 from $1.1214, and the British pound fell to $1.2863 from $1.2876.
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STAN CHOE , AP Business Writer
AP Business Writer Youkyung Lee contributed from Seoul.
