Markets fell on Thursday after a report showed a resilient labor market

NEW YORK — Wall Street futures fell on Thursday on lingering concerns that a robust labor market will help the Federal Reserve on its way to another big rate hike early next month.

Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 futures each fell 0.4%.

After two strong days of buying early in the final quarter of 2022, markets rallied on Wednesday after payroll processor ADP’s report showed employers added 208,000 jobs in September. Investors worry that could give ammunition to Fed officials who say more rate hikes are needed cold inflation that reached a four-decade high.

“The economy is too strong for the Fed to turn around,” Oanda’s Edward Moya said in the report.

Although the government Employment data released on Tuesday indicates that the labor market may cool, with investors likely to be more influenced by the weekly jobless claims report due later on Thursday and the all-important September jobs report due on Friday.

Wall Street analysts expect the government to report that the U.S. economy added 250,000 jobs last month, well below the 487,000 monthly average over the past year, but still a high number that suggests the fact that the labor market is healthy despite chronic inflation and two consecutive quarters of recession in the US economy.

At midday in Europe, London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.8%, Frankfurt’s DAX lost 0.4% and Paris’ CAC 40 was down 0.6%.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.7% to 27,311.30, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.4% to 18,012.15.

Seoul’s Kospi rose 1% to 2,237.86, while Sydney’s S&P ASX 200 lost less than 0.1% to 6,817.50.

New Zealand was down, while Southeast Asian markets were up.

The S&P 500 lost 0.2% on Wednesday. The index was coming off its strongest two-day gain in 2½ years.

The Dow was down 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.2%.

Investors are hoping that data showing a weakening economy will convince the Fed and central banks in Europe and Asia to ease rate hikes. They worry that aggressive action to cool inflation could push the global economy into recession, but forecasters say it may be premature to hope that central bankers will soften.

Fed officials say they are determined to keep raising interest rates and keep them high until it is clear that inflation has eased.

In energy markets, benchmark US crude lost 37 cents to $87.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

It rose $1.24 to $87.76 a barrel on Wednesday after energy ministers from Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut output to support falling prices.

Oil jumped above $110 a barrel after Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February, but fell. The decision to support prices could help Moscow preserve profits when Europe’s decision to cut purchases of Russian oil as punishment for its war against Ukraine takes effect in December.

The press secretary of the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, accused OPEC of “collusion with Russia.”

Brent crude, the benchmark for international oil trading, lost 31 cents to $93.06 a barrel in London. In the previous session, it increased by $1.57 to $93.37.

The dollar strengthened to 144.74 yen from 144.49 yen on Wednesday. The euro weakened to 98.63 cents from 98.94 cents.