NEW YORK — U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite to their worst week of the year, after April job gains came in below forecasts and investors fretted about weekend elections in Europe.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 168.32 points, or 1.3 percent, to 13,038.27. All 30 blue-chip stocks ended lower, led by more than 3 percent losses in Bank of America and Cisco Systems. For the week, the Dow lost 1.4 percent.
“Now that we got the jobs numbers out of the way, we can focus on other things, and Europe is still out there, with elections in Greece and France” today, said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James.
“Germany and France have been imposing their will on the rest of Europe; if there’s a crack in that, it may be initially unsettling in the markets,” he said.
France is holding the second round of its presidential election, while Greek voters will elect a new Parliament this weekend.
As for the U.S. jobs report, Brad Sorensen, Charles Schwab director of market and sector research, said: “Most people were expecting a sluggish number, and that’s what we got. But the prior two months were revised higher, so there is something for the bulls and the bears to hang onto.”
But on Wall Street, the bulls were in short supply, with the major indexes declining sharply.
The S&P 500 lost 22.47 points, or 1.6 percent, to 1,369.10. It was the S&P’s worst week since Dec. 16, with a 2.4 percent decline.
The Nasdaq composite declined 67.96 points, or 2.3 percent, to 2,956.34 — down 3.7 percent on the week. That was the index’s worst one-day and weekly loss since late November.
Apple’s stock, the index’s biggest component, fell 2.9 percent and lost 6.3 percent for the week, its worst week since October. Bucking the negative trend, shares of LinkedIn rallied 7.2 percent after the social-networking site raised its outlook and thrashed quarterly and revenue estimates.
Bonds jumped, with the 10-year Treasury yields falling to near three-month lows below 1.9 percent.
