Tesla surges, but latest jobs data darken Wall Street
Coronavirus causes national payrolls to fall
Bay Area stocks largely closed in the red Friday, as more negative data about the effect the coronavirus is having upon the state of American employment weighed on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 360.91 points, or 1.7%, to close at 21,052.53, while the S&P 500 gave up 1.5%, to end the week at 2,488.65, and the Nasdaq Composite Index also shed 1.5%, to finish at 7,373.08.
Tesla was a rare gainer among leading Bay Area stocks, as the electric carmaker’s shares rose 5.6%, to close at $480.01. On Thursday, Tesla said that it delivered more than 88,000 vehicles to customers during the first three months of the year. Tesla’s results included the first deliveries of its Model Y crossover vehicle, and the effect of plant shutdowns in China and Fremont, which closed as part of efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
But, aside from Tesla, decliners ruled the day after the U.S. Labor Department said non-farm payrolls in March fell by 701,000 as companies around the country started closing up in order to comply with many states’ shelter-in-place orders aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus.
It was the first time such payroll figures dropped since September 2010.
Among Bay Area companies, Apple shares slipped by almost 2%, to $240.37. Apple said that because of the economic effects of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, it is extending a customer assistance pro
gram that will let its Apple Card users defer their April payments without interest charges.
Losses also came from Intel, Facebook, Cisco Systems, HP, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet.
The payrolls data came one day after the Labor Department said 6.6 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week. Those figures included 879,000 claims coming from California.