NEW YORK — U.S. stocks tumbled Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average falling well below the 10,000 level, after a weaker-than-expected jobs report hit investors already on edge over the possibility that a sovereign-debt crisis was spreading across Europe.
Major stock indexes ended the first week of June solidly in the red, despite a big rally Wednesday and slight gains Thursday, the first two-day winning streak in more than a month. But all those gains and then some disappeared Friday.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 323 points, or 3.2 percent, to 9,931.97 as the government’s May nonfarm payrolls report showed only a puny rise in private-sector jobs, quashing hope that a strong U.S. economy could help counter the pull of negative sentiment from Europe.
The selloff came on strong volume. New York Stock Exchange composite turnover hit 6.3 billion shares, the highest daily tally of the holiday-shortened week but still well below May’s average of nearly 7 billion shares.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by 431,000 last month, short of economists’ expectations for a rise of 515,000 jobs, and only 41,000 private-sector jobs were added. The unemployment rate slipped to 9.7 percent in May from 9.9 percent the previous month, in line with expectations.
“This employment number was definitely a disappointment,” said Terry Morris, co-portfolio manager of National Penn Investors Trust. “This really kind of puts the bulls back on their heels.”
The Dow’s move below 10,000 came after the euro fell below $1.20 on fresh worries about Hungary’s economy. A leading official in the ruling party said Hungary faces a Greece-like sovereign-debt problem. Although Hungary is not part of the euro zone, its travails are fueling the perception of a broadening European banking crisis.
The Nasdaq composite fell 3.6 percent Friday to end down 1.7 percent for the week. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index dropped 3.4 percent to end with a weekly decline of 2.3 percent.
