Stocks Are Worried (But It’s Probably Not the Shutdown)

Stocks moved lower on Wednesday as the U.S. government entered its second day of a partial shutdown.

But the shutdown most likely isn’t what's affecting stocks (recall how stocks performed on the first day of the shutdown).

Markets are most likely moving lower on ADP’s lackluster jobs report. The private payroll company announced Wednesday that U.S. businesses added only 166,000 jobs in September.

Economists had hoped for a print of at least 180,000 new jobs.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell hard at around 10:00 am ET by roughly 130 points, or 0.9 percent, to 15,057:

The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped a little after 10:00 a.m. ET dropped 14 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,681:

Lastly, the Nasdaq composite declined 27 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3,790. It has since corrected that and gained back much of its losses:

The ADP jobs report is most likely the only data on the unemployment situation in the U.S. that we’ll have for some time.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday that official jobs data won’t be released this week unless Congress can agree on a budget deal and end the partial government shutdown. That means we won’t be seeing a BLS report any time soon.

We’ll continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds.

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Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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