Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo were among the notable names among Wall Street’s fallers on Friday after the key monthly jobs report disappointed.
More than 200 points came of the Dow Jones this morning after non-farms payroll data revealed 142,000 new jobs were added to the American economy last month, versus expectations of a 203,000 rise.
America’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, remained unchanged at 5.1%.
August job numbers were also revised, lowered to 136,000 job increase rather than the previously announced 173,000 jobs.
As the state of the labor market is a key consideration for the Federal Reserve in its reasoning for the timing of raising interest rates, the kneejerk analysis suggests a 2015 rate rise may now look less likely.
“The US economy seems fairly resilient but, with employment data particularly disappointing for a second month running, enthusiasm for a rate hike in the short term will surely be tempered,” said Dennis de Jong, managing director of UFX.com.
Meanwhile, Christopher Vecchio, analyst at DailyFX, said: "It might be time to put a pin in hopes for the Federal Reserve to raise rates in 2015.
“With the US labor market having been the sole pillar of fundamental strength supporting the US Dollar over the last year, the strongest talking point for a rate hike just took a significant hit.”
This morning, the Dow Jones lost 220 points, 1.3%m to trade at 16,050 whilst the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both fell around 1.2% to 1,901 and 4,570 respectively.
Bank of America was down 80 cents, 5.14%, at US$14.75 while JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) fell 4.3% and 3.8% respectively, and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) shed 3.2%.