The US markets ended lower on Thursday as a batch of upbeat jobs data led to renewed concerns about the outlook for monetary policy. Payroll processor ADP released a report showing private sector employment in the US spiked by much more than expected in the month of May. ADP said private sector employment soared by 978,000 jobs in May after surging by a downwardly revised 654,000 jobs in April. Street had expected private sector employment to increase by 650,000 jobs compared to the addition of 742,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.
Meanwhile, a separate report from the Labor Department showed a modest decrease in first-time claims for US unemployment benefits in the week ended May 29th. The report said initial jobless claims dipped to 385,000, a decrease of 20,000 from the previous week's revised level of 405,000. Street had expected jobless claims to edge down to 395,000 from the 406,000 originally reported for the previous week. On the sector front, significant weakness was visible among airline stocks, as reflected by the 3.3 percent nosedive by the NYSE Arca Airline Index. Housing, semiconductor and steel stocks also saw considerable weakness on the day, while networking stocks bucked the downtrend.
Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 23.34 points or 0.07 percent to 34,577.04. Nasdaq dropped 141.82 points or 1.03 percent to 13,614.51 and S&P 500 was down by 15.27 points or 0.36 percent to 4,192.85.