Dow plunges more than 600 points


Update 3:09 p.m.: The Dow has now fallen more than 630 points. Our original story appears below.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points at various times Friday afternoon, marking a shaky end to what is on track to be the markets' worst weekly decline in two years, MarketWatch reports.
The turbulent afternoon stems from fears over higher interest rates. It also paralleled the release of a controversial Republican memo that had been declassified by President Trump. ExxonMobil slid 5.4 percent and the S&P 500, which fell 1.2 percent, had energy as its worst-performing sector, CNBC reports.
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U.S. employers added 200,000 jobs in January, beating economists' expectations of 190,000 jobs gained. "Temporarily, good news may be bad news for the stock market," the senior economist at Ameriprise Financial, Russell Price, told USA Today. "But that's likely an acceptable trade-off for most Americans who are finally seeing higher wages and better opportunities."
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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