By By Johann M Cherian and Purvi Agarwal
(Reuters) – Wall Street’s three main indexes slipped in choppy trading on Thursday as a short-lived boost from a services activity survey fizzled out ahead of an upcoming employment report.
The nonfarm payrolls data for August is due on Friday amid worries of a slowdown in the economy, while focus continues to be on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut that is expected later this month.
Investors assessed a mixed set of reports on Thursday, including a decline in weekly jobless claims and an ADP survey which showed employers hired the fewest number of workers in 3-1/2 years in August.
Traders’ bets for a 25-basis point reduction in interest rates at the Fed’s September meeting now stand at 61%, according to the CME Group’s (NASDAQ:CME) FedWatch Tool. Bets for a larger 50-bps cut rose to 39% from 34% a week earlier.
With a rate cut at the Fed meeting almost certain, the uncertainty lies in its size as a larger cut could indicate deeper concerns about economic stability, Melissa Brown, managing director of applied research at SimCorp, said.
Soothing some concerns, an Institute for Supply Management survey showed services sector activity, rose to 51.5 in August, above expectations of 51.1.
At 12:03 p.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 365.31 points, or 0.89%, to 40,609.66, the S&P 500 lost 30.56 points, or 0.55%, to 5,489.51, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 11.79 points, or 0.07%, to 17,072.51.
September has been historically weak for U.S. equities, with the benchmark S&P 500 down about 1.2% for the month on average since 1928. The index is down more than 2% so far this week and tech stocks have fallen over 4%.
Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were in the red, led by healthcare stocks’ 1.7% decline. The consumer discretionary sector rose 0.8%, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) among the top boosts.
Tesla added 3.2% after the electric-vehicle maker said it will launch its full self-driving advanced driver assistance software in the first quarter next year in Europe and China, pending regulatory approval.
AI chip firm Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) edged up 0.4% after falling more than 11% in the previous two sessions.
Other megacap stocks also rebounded, with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rising 2.1%, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) added more than 0.3% each.
Frontier Communications (OTC:FTRCQ) dropped 9.3% after Verizon (NYSE:VZ) said it would buy the company in an all-cash deal worth $20 billion.
JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) jumped 8.6% after the carrier raised its third-quarter revenue forecast.
Leading up to the U.S. presidential elections, Goldman Sachs analysts said Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ proposed corporate tax hike could lower earnings for companies on the S&P 500 index by about 5%, while Republican candidate Donald Trump’s proposed relief would boost earnings by about 4%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.42-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.51-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 39 new 52-week highs and nine new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 31 new highs and 97 new lows.