Investors worry, market falls

With bad news on jobs expected, Dow drops 216 points, S&P loses 2.9 percent

NEW YORK -- A period of relative calm on Wall Street ended Thursday as stocks tumbled in the final hour of trading on growing investor anxiety ahead of the government's November employment report.

The major indexes each slid more than 2.5 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which dropped 216 points after rising in seven of the last eight sessions.

Investors are worried that the employment report to be issued today would show further deterioration in the job market. In the first 10 months of the year, employers have cut 1.2 million jobs, leaving the unemployment rate at 6.5 percent, a 14-year high. Economists expect the Labor Department will report that the jobless rate rose to 6.8 percent in November and that companies cut another 320,000 jobs.

"It's all about jobs, and right now the outlook is pretty downbeat," said Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist with Edward Jones in St. Louis.

Thursday's decline came as the heads of the Detroit automakers appeared before Congress with hopes of persuading skeptical lawmakers to provide $34 billion in emergency aid. Though the market expects General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler will be able to win some aid, a deal isn't assured.

The pullback followed a decent run on Wall Street. Broad indexes such as the Standard & Poor's 500 index have finished with gains in seven of the last nine sessions. Monday was the biggest exception, when the major indexes plunged more than 7 percent at the prospects of a punishing recession.

Thursday's selling, especially the final hour slide, fits in with the pattern of volatility that analysts have warned investors to expect as the market tries to recover from the devastating losses of the past few months.

The Dow industrials ended down 215.45, or 2.51 percent, at 8,376.24. Broader stock indicators also declined. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 25.52, or 2.93 percent, to 845.22, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 46.82, or 3.14 percent, to 1,445.56.

Before nervousness gripped the market late in the day, investors seemed to shrug off a stream of poor economic data as it had on Wednesday when stocks rallied. The Commerce Department said factory orders plunged by 5.1 percent in October.

Light, sweet crude fell $3.12 to settle at $43.67 a barrel in New York. Meanwhile, the average price of a gallon of gas at the pump fell below $1.80, also a four-year low.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 1.00 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.15 percent, Germany's DAX index slipped 0.07 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 0.17 percent.