Dow drops 900 on weak jobs data as global sell-off whips back to Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks are tumbling Friday on worries the U.S. economy could be cracking under the weight of high interest rates meant to whip inflation.

The S&P 500 was sinking by 2.5% in midday trading, potentially on pace for its worst day since 2022, and on track for its first back-to-back loss of more than 1% since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 954 points, or 2.4%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.9% lower as a sell-off for stocks whipped all the way around the world back to Wall Street.

A report showing hiring by U.S. employers slowed last month by much more than economists expected sent fear through markets, with both stocks and bond yields dropping sharply. It followed a batch of weaker-than-expected reports on the economy from a day earlier, including a worsening for U.S. manufacturing activity, which has been one of the areas hurt most by high rates.

It was just a couple days ago that U.S. stock indexes jumped to their best day in months after Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave the clearest indication yet that inflation has slowed enough for cuts to rates to begin in September.

Now, worries are rising the Fed may have kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for too long. A rate cut would make it easier for U.S. households and companies to borrow money and boost the economy, but it could take months to a year for the full effects to filter through.

"The Fed is seizing defeat from the jaws of victory," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. "Economic momentum has slowed so much that a rate cut in September will be too little and too late. They'll have to do something bigger than" the traditional cut of a quarter of a percentage point "to