Stocks Tumbled, Nasdaq Dropped 110 Points

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Friday reversed an early rally, sending the Nasdaq Composite to its worst day in two months. At close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 159.84 points, or 0.96%, to 16,412.71, 0.5% higher on the week. S&P 500 ended the day 23.68 points, or 1.25%, lower at 1,865.09. The Nasdaq Composite fell 110.02 points, or 2.60%, to 4,127.73.

U.S. employers maintained a solid pace of hiring for a second straight month in March, further evidence of resilience in an economy that had been held back by a brutally cold winter. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 192,000 jobs last month after rising 197,000 in February, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The Justice Department is investigating high-speed trading practices to determine whether they violate insider-trading laws, Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers Friday.

The Obama administration said that three million additional Americans were enrolled in Medicaid as of the end of February than were in the program before the start of the health law’s open enrollment period Oct. 1, suggesting the law allowed more people to gain Medicaid coverage.

The world’s two largest cement makers, France’s Lafarge and Switzerland’s Holcim, are in advanced talks to merge into a company with a stock market value of over $50 billion in what would be the industry’s biggest ever tie-up.