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Wall St stocks drop on mixed US jobs report

New York - Wall Street stocks fell in early trade on Friday after a government report showed strong US jobs growth in December, but weak wage levels.

About 30 minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 17 808.10, down 99.77 points (0.56%).

The broad-based S&P 500 lost 9.34 (0.45%) at 2 052.80, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index declined 11.71 (0.25%) to 4 724.48.

The US economy added a solid 252 000 jobs in December, while unemployment dropped to 5.6% from 5.8% in November, the Department of Labor said.

However, hourly earnings, one sign of the economy's strength, fell back, almost totally reversing the previous month's surprise gain. Hourly earnings were up just 1.7% from a year ago, just keeping up with inflation.

Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare called the payrolls data "good," but said the wage trend "wasn't encouraging at all".

The US Federal Reserve "should still be thinking it has plenty of reason to be patient in raising the fed funds rate," O'Hare said.

Macy's shed 2.6% after announcing it would shut 14 stores employing more than 1 300 in a restructuring to boost its focus on online shopping. Comparable-store sales in the key holiday shopping season rose 2.1% compared with last year.

Chemicals giant DuPont slipped 0.2% after investment firm Trian said it would launch a proxy battle to win four seats on the board of directors. Trian is led by prominent investor activist Nelson Peltz.

Bed Bath & Beyond, a retailer of home goods, slid 8.1% as earnings for the third quarter fell five percent to $225.4m.

Coffee giant Starbucks lost 2.1% as it announced that veteran executive Troy Alstead, currently chief operating officer, was taking an "extended unpaid leave" from the company.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury was unchanged at 2.01%, while the 30-year rose to 2.61% from 2.59%. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

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