US open: Major indices flat as December non farm payrolls disappoint

dl wall street st new york city nyc nyse stock exchange ny dow jones nasdaq sp finance us usa united states of america — Wall StreetSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks were little changed early on Friday after December's all-important non farm payrolls figures came in well and truly short of expectations.

As of 1515 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was flat at 36,236.40, while the S&P 500 was also flat at 4,696.20 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.01% weaker at 15,079.63.

The Dow opened 0.07 points lower on Friday after recording heavy losses in the previous session as fears over tighter monetary policy remained in focus and investors digested a number of key data points.

Friday's primary focus was December's non farm payrolls and unemployment rate reports, with the data revealing that the US added 199,000 new jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, well and truly short of the 400,000 expected by analysts.

However, November's non farm payrolls figure was revised up to show that 249,000 jobs were created, up from 210,000, while October's print was also lifted to 648,000 from 546,000. The US unemployment rate also dropped to 3.9%, down from 4.2% in November as employment continued to trend up in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, manufacturing, construction and transportation and warehousing.

Market participants were also holding out for comments from Federal Reserve heads Mary Daly, Raphael Bostic and Thomas Barkin later in the day.

In the corporate space, GameStop shares surged more than 12% after news broke that the company planned to venture into the crypto universe with investments in a marketplace for nonfungible tokens and digital currency partnership, while Starbucks shares were 1.72% in the red after analysts at both RBC Capital Markets and Oppenheimer downgraded the coffee maker.

No major earnings were slated for release on Friday.

Dow Jones - Risers

Boeing Co. (BA) $214.77 1.62%
Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) $58.96 1.24%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $173.73 1.01%
American Express Co. (AXP) $174.32 0.82%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $223.51 0.68%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $230.65 0.66%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $315.67 0.57%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $157.72 0.52%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $398.76 0.46%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $54.24 0.42%