Nasdaq slips, S&P 500 subdued after soft job openings report

By Johann M Cherian and Purvi Agarwal

(Reuters) - The Nasdaq slipped and the benchmark S&P 500 was flat on Wednesday after a soft job openings report fanned concerns about the health of the U.S. economy.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed job openings in the month of July stood at 7.673 million, lower than the 8.1 million that economists polled by Reuters were expecting.

The data comes ahead of the crucial August non-farm payrolls numbers due on Friday, which could sway bets on the size of the U.S. Federal Reserve's expected interest rate cut in September.

Markets now expect a 53% chance of a 25-basis point cut, according to CME Group's (NASDAQ:CME ) FedWatch Tool, down from more than 61% earlier in the day, while that of a 50 bps cut stands at 47%.

"(The report) will do little to allay lingering concerns over the health of the U.S. labor market," said Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone.

In the previous session, Wall Street's main indexes had logged their biggest one-day loss since early August as investors dumped technology-related stocks in a dour start to September.

Since 1928, the benchmark S&P 500 has recorded losses of about 1.2% on average in the historically weak month for U.S. equities.

The risk-off mood was exacerbated by data in Tuesday that showed manufacturing activity shrank, nearly a month after signs of softening labor demand sparked a global market rout.

The Fed's survey, known as the "Beige Book", is also expected on Wednesday.

At 10:14 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 95.23 points, or 0.23%, to 41,032.16, the S&P 500 lost 3.01 points, or 0.05%, to 5,525.92, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 70.24 points, or 0.41%, to 17,066.06.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were up, led by utilities which were up 1.2%.

A rise in financial stocks such as Goldman Sachs and Travelers (NYSE:TRV ) helped keep the blue-chip Dow above water.

The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index edged higher after notching its biggest one-day drop since the COVID-19 pandemic in the previous session.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA ) fell 0.8% after a report said the U.S. Department of Justice sent a subpoena to the AI chip firm as it deepens its probe into the company's antitrust practices.

Other growth stocks such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL ) slipped 2%, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN ) lost 1.2% and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT ) fell 0.7%.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS ) forecast fiscal 2025 revenue and profit below estimates, sending its shares down 17.2%, while Dollar Tree (NASDAQ:DLTR ) slumped 18.6% after the discount store operator trimmed its annual sales and profit forecasts.



Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 1.5-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.13-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 67 new 52-week highs and six new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 24 new highs and 99 new lows.

Source: Investing.com