World european stock indices higher US stocks flat

Slower-than-expected U.S. jobs growth pushed Treasury yields and the dollar lower on Friday while capping stock indexes as investors grew cautious on the outlook for U.S. economic growth and Federal Reserve plans for trimming stimulus, Reuters reported. The number of jobs outside the farming sector increased by 162,000 in July, although the unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent, its lowest in over four years. The result was below the median forecast in a Reuters poll for 184,000 new jobs. Global markets suffered wild swings in May when the U.S. Federal Reserve indicated it might wind down easy monetary conditions. The Fed risks panicking markets again if it withdraws stimulus before the U.S. economic recovery is well established, the IMF warned in a report. U.S. benchmark indexes were mixed on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 8.97 points, or 0.06 percent, at 15,619.05. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 0.59 points, or 0.03 percent, at 1,706.28. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 5.85 points, or 0.16 percent, at 3,681.59. European shares erased gains after the data but then recovered some of the drop, with the FTSEurofirst 300 closing up 0.3 percent. Earlier, the index touched a two-month high on a rally in insurers after earnings reports from AXA and Allianz. The MSCI world equity index was last up 0.4 percent. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note, which was in negative territory before the jobs report, was up 29/32 afterward, its yield easing to 2.65979 percent. Traders of short-term U.S. interest-rate futures boosted bets that the Federal Reserve will wait until 2015 before raising short-term borrowing costs. German Bund futures rose 0.2 percent to 142.60. Italian bonds braved growing political uncertainty after Italy's top court upheld a jail sentence against former Premier Silvio Berlusconi that could throw the country's coalition into crisis. Italian government bond yields were last at 4.252 percent