November 02, 2012- Stocks Close Lower Finding Strong Technical Resistance Despite Upbeat US Jobs Data

With traders shrugging off a better than expected jobs report amid lingering concerns about the global economic outlook, stocks moved sharply lower over the course of the trading day on Friday, largely offsetting yesterday's strong gains. The major averages saw further downside going into the close, ending the session near their worst levels of the day. The Dow slid 139.46 points or 1.1 percent to 13,093.16, the Nasdaq tumbled 37.93 points or 1.3 percent to 2,982.13 and the S&P 500 fell 13.39 points or 0.9 percent to 1,414.20. As a result of the losses on the day, the major averages were nearly flat for the abbreviated trading week. While the S&P 500 inched up by 0.2 percent, the Dow and the Nasdaq edged down by 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. The pullback by stocks came despite the release of a report from the Labor Department showing that the U.S. economy added more jobs than anticipated in the month of October. The report said non-farm payroll employment increased by 171,000 jobs in October following an upwardly revised increase of 148,000 jobs in September. Economists had expected employment to increase by about 125,000 jobs compared to the increase of 114,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. Despite the continued job growth, the unemployment rate edged up to 7.9 percent in October from 7.8 percent in September due to an increase by the size of the workforce. The modest increase by the unemployment rate matched economist estimates.