U.S. stocks came well off session lows but were still down in the final hour of trade on Thursday, as investors assessed private payrolls data and looked ahead to Friday’s December jobs report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 303 points, or 0.9%, to 32,967. The S&P 500 shed 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.2%. Employment data published Thursday suggested that the labor market still remains tight, which could force the central bank to keep hiking interest rates to a higher level than currently anticipated to tame inflation. Most notably, ADP private payrolls data showed 235,000 jobs were created in December, beating Wall Street’s expectations for 153,000 new jobs.
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