Major Indexes Plummet After Jobs Report Comes in Far Worse Than Expected; Dow Plunges 900 Points

The US Economy Lost 92,000 Jobs in February

FROM 44 minutes ago

The job market was supposed to stabilize in February. Instead, it took a nosedive.

February was the worst month for the job market since October, as employers unexpectedly shed 92,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3% in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The job losses and rise in unemployment came as a surprise to forecasters, who had called for a gain of 50,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to stay flat, according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

The report was highly anticipated as a barometer of whether the job market was stabilizing after recent slump, or whether the slowdown was continuing. 2025 was the slowest year for job creation outside of a recession in more than 20 years. A surprise upturn in job creation in January raised hopes that the market was looking up, but the loss of jobs in February was a clear signal that the job market is still losing steam.

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–Diccon Hyatt

Time to Go to Med School? Most New Jobs Likely to Be in Health Care

FROM 2 hours ago

The health care sector has been one of only a few bright spots in the job market lately, and economists see that trend continuing in the near future.

Friday’s report on the job market from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to show, once again, that the sector was hale and hearty while other occupations were on life support in February.

In January, for example, the sector added 137,000 jobs, accounting for nearly all the month’s job growth, while other industries lost ground. The same was true over the course of 2025—job growth would have been in the red last year if not for health care pushing it into positive territory.

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–Diccon Hyatt

When Homeowners Are ‘Locked In,’ Buyers Get Priced Out

FROM 2 hr 22 min ago

When mortgage rates rise, home prices usually go down. But the exact opposite happened when interest rates climbed after the pandemic, and new research sheds light on how and why.

Normally, higher interest rates push prices down because buyers drop out of the market, reducing demand. But the economy was anything but normal in 2021, and a new paper by Justin Katz, a research fellow at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, examines how and where the “lock-in” effect kept prices soaring even as mortgage rates rose. It turns out renters played a major role in the phenomenon.

Mortgage rates began to rise in 2021 after years of rock-bottom rates, climbing to more than 7% from under 3% in just two years. Because rates were so low for so long during the pandemic, millions of homeowners had rock-bottom mortgage rates, giving them a huge financial incentive not to sell their homes. With fewer houses on the market, the supply-and-demand equation was tilted in favor of sellers, and prices continued to rise.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Robinhood Is Breaking With Wall Street by Paying Dividends Early

FROM 2 hr 53 min ago

Robinhood announced Wednesday that it will roll out a new “Early Dividends” program this spring, giving investors access to their dividend payments sooner than the standard industry timeline.

The move would apply to eligible dividend-paying stocks and breaks from the industry’s standard practice of crediting dividends on the payment date. Robinhood said it is the first and only platform to give investors access to dividends before the payment date—a shift that could matter most for those who rely on steady dividend income.

Under the program, Robinhood said investors will receive dividend payments after a stock’s record date rather than waiting until the payment date, which is when most brokerages typically credit funds.

On average, the brokerage estimates that would make dividends available about 17 days earlier, with some payments arriving as much as a month ahead of the usual schedule. The program is set to roll out in April.

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–Sabrina Karl

Oil Prices Are Surging—And It’s Making Stock Investors Anxious. Here’s Why

FROM 3 hr 7 min ago

Stocks tumbled again Thursday. You can blame the price of oil.

All three major U.S. indexes finished lower, with Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping nearly 800 points. What’s going up? Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was recently at prices last seen in 2024.

Rising oil prices, fueled by ongoing conflict in the Middle East—and, particularly, disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime shipping route—have fanned concerns of a supply shock that could spark inflation and weigh on economic activity. That has lifted shares of energy companies but otherwise weighed on stocks broadly, unwinding some of the runup indexes had seen as investors shifted away from tech and toward comparably defensive stocks.

“Iran doesn’t need to sink a single U.S. warship,” BCA Research wrote Thursday. “It could inflict much more damage by sinking the U.S. stock and bond markets by disrupting shipping, trade, and oil tankers.”

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–David Marino-Nachison and Stephen Wisnefski

Stock Futures Point Lower Ahead of Jobs Report

FROM 3 hr 45 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed 0.2% lower.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.3%.

Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.4%.