US close: Dow loses almost 300 points on fourth day of losses

dl exchange place wall st street pl new york city nyc ny nyse stock exchange dow jones sp nasdaq finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america — Exchange PlaceSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street finished lower for the fourth session in a row on Wednesday, after a weaker-than-expected reading on the US jobs market from consultancy ADP.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.88% at 31,510.43, as the S&P 500 lost 0.78% to 3,955.00, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 0.56% at 11,816.20.

On the economic front, ADP reported that private sector payrolls rose by 132,000 in August, missing a consensus forecast of 300,000.

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the lack of clarity around the historical data provided by ADP meant that "the July undershoot tells us nothing about the likely direction or size of the error in August.”

"We're sticking to our forecast that private payrolls rose by 350K, based on the strong Homebase data for the official survey week,” he noted.

Elsewhere, Market News International's factory sector purchasing managers' index (PMI) inched up to 52.2 in August from a reading of 52.1 for July, higher than consensus expectations for 51.3.

In equity markets, Snapchat parent Snap jumped 8.69% despite a report that the company was planning to lay off 20% of its employees as it looked to cut costs.

According to the Verge, the layoffs - which Snap had been planning for the past several weeks - were set to begin on Wednesday and hit some departments harder than others.

It said the team working on ways for developers to build mini apps and games inside Snapchat would be severely impacted, with social mapping app Zenly - bought by Snap in 2017 - also set to see deep cuts.

On the downside, ailing home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond tumbled 21.3% after it said in a strategic update that it would trim its staff numbers amid a gloomy sales outlook.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com. Additional reporting by Alexander Bueso.

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