US Stocks Flat On Solid Jobs Data, Tight Election Polls

NEW YORK,, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 04th Nov, 2016 ) - Wall Street stocks opened little-changed Friday following a solid US jobs report as anxiety over the tight US presidential election pressured global equity markets.

The US economy added 161,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dipped to 4.9 percent, according to the Labor Department, in the final major economic report Tuesday's presidential election.

Major equity indices in Asia and Europe fell as investors nervously tracked polls showing Republican Donald Trump narrowly behind Democrat Hillary Clinton in the battle for the White House.

Investors are unsettled by the prospects of a Trump win, given his volatile personality and pledges to shake up economic policy.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 17,925.26, down less than 0.1 percent. The broad-based S&P 500 edged up a hair at 2,089.33, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.1 percent to 5,052.97. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have both fallen eight days in a row.