By Patrick Graham
LONDON, Oct 2 (Reuters) - U.S. and European stock markets
sank on Friday in response to drastically poorer than expected
U.S. jobs numbers which weakened the case for a rise in Federal
Reserve interest rates this year.
The payrolls numbers showed hiring outside of farming of
just 142,000 last month, short of a consensus forecast of
203,000, while August figures were revised sharply lower to show
only 136,000 jobs were added a month earlier.
Europe's major stock markets, which had been up around 1.5
percent on the day, fell back into negative territory .FTEU3
while futures showed Wall Street would fall around 1 percent on
opening.
That all came at the end of what has already been a wild
week for markets due to concerns over China, commodities prices
and related stocks like Glencore GLEN.L .
The dollar also fell sharply against all its major peers,
down 0.9 percent on the day against the euro EUR=EBS and 0.6
percent against the yen. JPY=EBS
"Aside from the NFP miss, average hourly earnings totally
missed expecations," said one trader.
U.S. 10-year Treasury yields US10YT=TWB fell 10 basis
points to 1.94 percent while 10-year German Bund yields
DE10YT=TWEB fell to 0.51 percent, their lowest since June 1.