Market News: 192,000 Jobs Added, Facebook Inc, Yahoo! Inc.

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The stock markets in the United States ended the week lower as investors continued to sell their investments in the biggest winners in the bull market. The latest employment data also increased speculations that the Federal Reserve will maintain its low rates, according to Bloomberg.

The Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate in the country remained at 6.7% in March. According to the agency, American companies added 192,000 jobs last month. Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen recently stated that the accommodative policies of the central bank are still needed to support economic growth and help Americans go back to work.

With regard to the sell-off in the stock markets, John Carey, a fund manager at Pioneer Investment Management, told Bloomberg, “There’s a little bit of nervousness about some of the high multiples in the biotech area and computer and Internet-related stocks. You’re having another wave of selling in that very high-momentum group.”

On the other hand,  Rick Fier, director of equity trading at Conifer Securities LLC, commented, “This has been in the making for a few weeks. Managers were positioned very heavily last year with the winners. They killed in 2013, and money started to pour in them. Today is kind of like the panic day that they couldn’t stand it anymore and now they’re just puking these names.”

U.S. Markets

  • Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)- 16,428.89 (-0.87%)
  • S&P 500- 1,868.08 (-1.10 %)
  • NASDAQ- 4,136.99 (-2.38%)
  • Russell 2000- 1,153.66 (-2.32%)

European Markets

  • EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,230.33 (+0.74%)
  • FTSE 100 Index- 6,695.55 (+0.70%)
  • Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 9,695.70 (+0.7-%)

Asia Pacific Markets

  • Nikkei 225- 15,063.77 (-0.55%)
  • Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 22,510.08 (-0.24%)
  • Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 2,185.47 (+0.95%)

Stocks in Focus

The stock price of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) declined 4.61% to $56.75 per share today. Investors became nervous when Sheryl Sandberg, COO of the social network giant, sold a large number of her shares in the company. Sandberg has sold $398 million shares since Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) went public in May 2012. In December, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold around 41.5 million shares. Both executives used some of the proceeds to pay taxes.

CNBC contributor Andrew Busch, also editor and publisher of The Busch Update, opined, “It leads one to believe that you should be a little bit nervous here, a little bit concerned about Sandberg because she was the adult that was brought in to help run Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). They’ve obviously had tremendous success with her. But, I wonder what the conversation was about buying WhatsApp. Was that an agreed-upon thing between those two or was there a schism there that may have led her to sell?”

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) also dropped 4.19% to $34.26 per share today, despite unveiling a massive new encryption to protect users. The company revealed that it is working around the clock to encrypt 100% of its traffic, including the private data of its 100 million users.

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