Wall Street stocks closed lower in another down week

US equities retreated again Friday, closing another week in the red after a brief positive respite last week, amid the ever-present concerns about inflation and a potential recession.

“We are still in a bear market and until proven otherwise the path of least resistance is down,” Maris Ogg of Tower Bridge Advisors, told AFP.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost one percent to finish the session at 32,898.91.

The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 1.6 percent to 32,898.91, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index sank 2.5 percent to 12,012.73.

The Dow and S&P were each down about one percent for the week, while the Nasdaq lost 1.25 percent.

Better-than-expected US employment gains in May added to the inflation worries even though wage gains slowed, and a services sector index showed growth slowing in that dominant area of the world’s largest economy.

Economists said the data was good news for the Federal Reserve, which is aggressively raising interest rates in an all-out offensive against sky-high price increases. But Ogg said major components of inflation are not improving.

“Oil is not going to get better, labor is not going to get better, housing is not going to get better. Housing and labor are in shortage,” she said. “As far as the stock market goes, I would be surprised if the worst is over.”

Among individual stocks, Tesla shares plunged 9.2 percent after the electric carmaker’s CEO Elon Musk told employees the company plans to cut the salaried workforce by 10 percent and rely on more hourly workers because he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.