Markets slide and so do job numbers

Stocks on Wall Street started August slightly lower and were stagnant Tuesday morning as investors searched corporate earnings reports for clues about inflation and economic health. The S&P 500 stock market index fell 0.6 percent as of midmorning, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq fell by 0.9 and 0.6 percent respectively. July was the best month for the S&P 500 index since November 2020, but economic news and company earnings reports over the last week have left traders a bit cautious, said Lindsey Bell, chief markets and money strategist at Ally Invest.

What about jobs? The U.S. Department of Labor reported Tuesday that employers posted fewer job openings in June. From December until May, employers had consistently posted more than 11 million job openings. In June, it slipped to 10.7 million, which was down from 11.3 million in May. The number of Americans quitting their jobs in June fell slightly to 4.2 million, and the number of layoffs fell to 1.3 million from 1.4 million, according to the Labor Department.

Dig deeper: Read WORLD Magazine’s report on how the U.S. economy is shrinking.