Bank stocks took a dive in premarket trading Friday, as Treasury yields sank in the wake of disappointing government jobs data. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s stock fell 1.6% to pace the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s early decliners, followed by the 1.4% drop in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s stock . The implied price declines of those two stocks would shave about 50 points off the Dow’s price, while Dow futures declined 16 points, or 0.1%. Elsewhere, shares of Bank of America Corp. were down 1.7%, Citigroup Inc. shed 1.4% and Wells Fargo & Co. gave up 1.3%, while the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF was down 1.1%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note dropped 4.7 basis points to a 2-month low of 1.515%, after the U.S. added a lot less jobs than expected and the unemployment rate surprisingly rose. Lower longer-term interest rates can hurt bank profits, as it narrows the spread they can earn on longer-term assets, like loans, that are funded with shorter-term liabilities.
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