In major stock market news today, markets are pulling out of losses at midday after volatile morning trade. Investors pulled out of markets after Russian President Vladimir Putin today vowed to back Syria in the event of a U.S. attack.
U.S. President Barack Obama, joining Putin at the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg today, repeated his message that a U.S. attack would not be full scale, but would be on par with a recent attack on Damascus.
In other stock market news today, investors learned that the United States added 169,000 jobs in August as unemployment dropped slightly to 7.3% from 7.4%, according to the U.S. Labor Department. It was fewer jobs than economists anticipated.
And fewer people were looking for work as the labor force participation dropped to 63.2%, which is the lowest level since 1978, according to MarketWatch. Many investors suspect the worse-than-expected jobs data could delay the U.S. Federal Reserve's plans to ease out of its bond-buying program starting after the Sept. 17-18 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting (Septaper).
Meanwhile, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans hinted that the Fed could begin increasing interest rates in 2015 as unemployment falls below 6.5%.
Amid the mixed economic data this week, Treasury yields, which have been rising all week, dropped today as Treasury prices rose on the jobs report data. The 10-year Treasury prices are up about 1% this morning.
