MoneyBeat: Wall of Fear Has Stocks Blocked
The stock market's decline in the face of Friday's strong jobs report shows how uncomfortable investors have become about taking risks.</br></br>The report showed that in April, job creation was its highest in more than a year, while unemployment fell sharply to 6.3% from 6.7%.</br></br>Stocks greeted that news with across-the-board declines Friday, including a 46-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to 16512.89. On Wednesday, the Dow had closed at a record high for the first time this year. Since then, it has pulled back and is now once again down slightly, 0.4%, for 2014.</br></br>The problem is the one that has plagued stocks since the Dow's 26% gain last year: a concern that they have risen too far, too fast, and that the economic and corporate-earnings outlooks aren't strong enough to push them much higher now. For all its strong job-creation news, the jobs report also showed soft wage growth and a lot of people abandoning job searches.</br></br>A significant stock upturn will take more than good job creation, said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman Private Banking, which oversees $28 billion in New York.