• US stocks went down on Friday because of better than expected jobs data.
• In September, the number of jobs in the US grew by 263,000, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%.
• Dow Jones drops 298 points, S&P 500 drops 47 points, Nasdaq falls 215 points.

At the start of trading on Friday, US stocks went down because investors were looking at jobs data that was better than expected. In September, the number of jobs in the US grew by 263,000, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%.

As soon as the market opened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 298 points, or 1%, to 29,629 points, the S&P 500 had dropped 47 points, or 1.3%, to 3,697 points, and the Nasdaq Composite had dropped 215 points, or 1.9%, to 10,858 points.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. fell about 7.1% after the semiconductor company said that its sales for the third quarter were more than $1 billion less than expected. This is because more PCs are being made than people want, so demand for PCs is still low.

DraftKings Inc. went up by about 7.5% after it was said that the sports betting company was making a big deal with cable company ESPN.

Neil Wilson, a market analyst at Markets.com, told clients in a note that today’s data on non-farm payrolls would not stop the Fed from raising interest rates quickly.

“So far, the Fed hasn’t done much to stop inflation, and the job market is still very strong, with unemployment at its lowest level since before the Great Recession. You do the math,” he wrote.

According to new data released this morning by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US job market grew less quickly in September.

The number of jobs on non-farm payrolls went up by 263,000 in September, which was less than the 315,000 jobs added the month before and more than the 255,000 jobs that analysts on average expected.

The Bureau said that there were a lot of job gains in health care and leisure and hospitality.

The unemployment rate went down slightly to 3.5%, or 5.8 million people, which is back to where it was in July. This was again lower than what most analysts expected, which was 3.7%.

The Bureau said that Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida on September 28, didn’t seem to have much of an effect on employment and unemployment numbers for the month.

Just after the jobs report came out, futures for the three major indexes were mostly the same, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average going up 0.2%, the S&P 500 staying the same, and the Nasdaq Composite going down 0.1%.

On Friday, US stocks are likely to open with a mix of gains and losses as attention turns to the important non-farm payrolls data for September. This data will show how the Federal Reserve plans to move interest rates forward.

If the results are weaker than expected, the stock market is likely to go up because rate setters may have to think about slowing the rate of interest rate increases as they try to keep inflation in check.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.2% in pre-market trading, while those for the S&P 500 were flat and those for the Nasdaq-100 were down 0.3%.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said, “The US will release its latest jobs data in a tense and volatile environment, with an energy crisis, persistent inflation, Fed members insisting that what they are doing is right, and markets crying that what they are doing might be a bit too much.”

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