March 06, 2026 10:43 AM EST<\/p>\n
Every S&P 500 Sector Lower Except for Energy<\/p>\n
FROM 21 minutes ago<\/p>\n
Much like yesterday, energy shares are a lone bright spot for equities investors.\n<\/p>\n
For a second straight day, the S&P 500 Energy Sector was the only one of the 11 industries tracked by the benchmark index to trade in the green, rising 0.4%.\n<\/p>\n
Seven sector components were up at least 1% on a tough day for stocks, with Diamondback Energy (FANG<\/a>) the leader with a 1.6% advance.\n<\/p>\n The S&P 500 was down 1% overall.\n<\/p>\n March 06, 2026 09:35 AM EST<\/p>\n The US Economy Lost 92,000 Jobs in February<\/p>\n FROM 1 hr 28 min ago<\/p>\n The job market was supposed to stabilize in February. Instead, it took a nosedive.\n<\/p>\n February was the worst month for the job market since October, as employers unexpectedly shed 92,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3% in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.\n<\/p>\n The job losses and rise in unemployment came as a surprise to forecasters, who had called for a gain of 50,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to stay flat, according to a survey of economists by\u00a0Dow Jones Newswires\u00a0and\u00a0The Wall Street Journal.\n<\/p>\n Jobseekers speak with recruiters during the WorkSource North Seattle Career Fair in Seattle on Feb. 10, 2026.<\/p>\n David Ryder\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n The report was highly anticipated as a barometer of whether the job market was stabilizing after recent slump, or whether the slowdown was continuing. 2025 was the\u00a0slowest year for job creation<\/a>\u00a0outside of a recession in more than 20 years. A surprise\u00a0upturn in job creation in January<\/a>\u00a0raised hopes that the market was looking up, but the loss of jobs in February was a clear signal that the job market is still losing steam.\n<\/p>\n Read the full article here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n –Diccon Hyatt<\/a><\/p>\n March 06, 2026 08:19 AM EST<\/p>\n Time to Go to Med School? Most New Jobs Likely to Be in Health Care<\/p>\n FROM 2 hr 44 min ago<\/p>\n The health care sector has been one of only a few bright spots in the job market lately, and economists see that trend continuing in the near future.\n<\/p>\n Friday’s report on the job market from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to show, once again, that the sector was hale and hearty while other occupations were on life support in February.\n<\/p>\n A large part of job growth has been concentrated in health care.<\/p>\n Paul Bersebach \/ MediaNews Group \/ Orange County Register via Getty Images<\/p>\n In January, for example, the sector added 137,000 jobs, accounting for nearly all the month’s job growth, while other industries lost ground. The same was true over the course of 2025\u2014job growth\u00a0would have been in the red last year<\/a>\u00a0if not for health care pushing it into positive territory.\n<\/p>\n Read the full article here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n –Diccon Hyatt<\/a>\n<\/p>\n March 06, 2026 07:57 AM EST<\/p>\n When Homeowners Are ‘Locked In,’ Buyers Get Priced Out<\/p>\n FROM 3 hr 7 min ago<\/p>\n When mortgage rates rise, home prices usually go down. But the exact opposite happened when interest rates climbed after the pandemic, and new research sheds light on how and why.\n<\/p>\n Normally,\u00a0higher interest rates push prices down<\/a>\u00a0because buyers drop out of the market, reducing demand. But the economy was anything but normal in 2021, and a new paper by Justin Katz, a research fellow at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, examines how and where the “lock-in” effect kept prices soaring even as mortgage rates rose. It turns out renters played a major role in the phenomenon.\n<\/p>\n A new study examines why mortgage rates and home prices climbed in tandem after the pandemic.<\/p>\n Kevin Carter \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n Mortgage rates began to rise in 2021 after years of rock-bottom rates, climbing to more than 7% from under 3% in just two years. Because rates were so low for so long during the pandemic,\u00a0millions of homeowners had rock-bottom mortgage rates<\/a>, giving them a huge financial incentive not to sell their homes. With fewer houses on the market, the supply-and-demand equation was tilted in favor of sellers, and prices continued to rise.\n<\/p>\n Read the full article here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n –Diccon Hyatt<\/a>\n<\/p>\n March 06, 2026 07:26 AM EST<\/p>\n Robinhood Is Breaking With Wall Street by Paying Dividends Early<\/p>\n FROM 3 hr 38 min ago<\/p>\n Robinhood announced Wednesday that it will roll out a new \u201cEarly Dividends\u201d program this spring, giving investors access to their dividend payments sooner than the standard industry timeline.\n<\/p>\n The move would apply to eligible dividend-paying stocks and breaks from the industry\u2019s standard practice of crediting\u00a0dividends<\/a>\u00a0on the payment date. Robinhood said it is the first and only platform to give investors access to dividends before the\u00a0payment date<\/a>\u2014a shift that could matter most for those who rely on steady dividend income.\n<\/p>\n Robinhood plans to let investors access dividend payments before the traditional payout date.<\/p>\n SOPA Images \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n Under the program, Robinhood said investors will receive dividend payments after a stock\u2019s\u00a0record date<\/a>\u00a0rather than waiting until the payment date, which is when most brokerages typically credit funds.\n<\/p>\n On average, the brokerage estimates that would make dividends available about 17 days earlier, with some payments arriving as much as a month ahead of the usual schedule. The program is set to roll out in April.\n<\/p>\n Read the full article here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n –Sabrina Karl<\/a>\n<\/p>\n March 06, 2026 07:12 AM EST<\/p>\n Oil Prices Are Surging\u2014And It’s Making Stock Investors Anxious. Here’s Why<\/p>\n FROM 3 hr 51 min ago<\/p>\n Stocks tumbled again Thursday. You can blame the price of oil.\n<\/p>\n All three major U.S. indexes finished lower, with Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping nearly 800 points. What’s going up? Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was recently at prices last seen in 2024.\n<\/p>\n Rising oil prices, fueled by ongoing conflict in the Middle East\u2014and, particularly, disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime shipping route\u2014have fanned concerns of a\u00a0supply shock<\/a>\u00a0that could spark inflation and weigh on economic activity. That has lifted shares of energy companies but otherwise weighed on stocks broadly, unwinding some of the runup indexes had seen as investors shifted away from tech and toward comparably defensive stocks.\n<\/p>\n The price of oil, recently at levels not seen since 2024, was shaking markets Thursday.<\/p>\n Angela Weiss \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n “Iran doesn\u2019t need to sink a single U.S. warship,” BCA Research wrote Thursday. “It could inflict much more damage by sinking the U.S. stock and bond markets by disrupting shipping, trade, and oil tankers.”\n<\/p>\n Read the full article here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n –David Marino-Nachison<\/a> and Stephen Wisnefski<\/a>\n<\/p>\n March 06, 2026 06:33 AM EST<\/p>\n Stock Futures Point Lower Ahead of Jobs Report<\/p>\n FROM 4 hr 30 min ago<\/p>\n Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed 0.2% lower.\n<\/p>\n TradingView<\/p>\n S&P 500 futures were down 0.3%.\n<\/p>\n TradingView<\/p>\n Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.4%.\n<\/p>\n TradingView<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 06, 2026 10:43 AM EST Every S&P 500 Sector Lower Except for Energy FROM 21 minutes ago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-316209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}