The stock market is trying to stage a rebound, but it’s struggling to hold onto even modest gains.
The S&P 500 was up 0.4% roughly 20 minutes into Friday’s session. About 330 of the index’s members were rising. The index is bouncing right around its 200-day moving average of 5733.01. That level has provided support for the market all week amid uncertainty swirling around tariffs and the path forward for the economy.
The Dow was up just 100 points. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.4%. All three indexes opened lower, bounced, fell, and are bouncing again.
The U.S. added 151,000 jobs in February, which was below expectations but high enough to signal some stability in the labor market. Of course, the cuts to government employees and contractors that the market is worried about will start to come to bear in March or April. Additionally, policy uncertainty could weigh on private sector hiring in the months ahead.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did little to assuage such concerns in an interview on CNBC Friday. He argued the economy has become “hooked” on government spending and “there’s going to be a detox period.”
“Could we be seeing that this economy that we inherited starting to roll a bit? Sure. And look, there’s going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending,” Bessent said.
