By Chris Prentice and Naomi Rovnick
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -Surprisingly weak U.S. employment data on Friday stoked fears of a recession ahead, prompting investors to dump stocks and turn to safe-haven bonds.
Treasury prices surged, sending yields to multi-month lows.
Oil price benchmarks fell by more than $3 per barrel at their session lows. The U.S. dollar index dropped over 1% to its weakest since March.
Richly valued technology firms bore much of the pain, and an index of European bank stocks headed for its largest weekly decline in 17 months on soft earnings.
The VIX stock market volatility measure, dubbed Wall Street’s fear gauge, surged over 40%.
Friday’s U.S. jobs report showed job growth slowed more than expected in July and unemployment increased to 4.3%, pointing to possible weakness in the labor market and greater vulnerability to recession.
Markets were already rattled by downbeat earnings updates from Amazon and Intel and…
