US MARKET (Friday)

Stocks Slide After Rise in Unemployment Rate

A jump in unemployment sent stocks sharply lower Friday as investors feared that Americans won't soon deviate from their tightened budgets. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 143 points to end the week down nearly 5 percent, its worst week since November.

Wall Street is also girding for dismal fourth-quarter earnings reports from companies starting next week.

"Everyone is expecting bad results," said Jim Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management. But he said Wall Street has also set expectations so low that results would have to be far worse than expected to startle the market.

"Anything that's not catastrophic will probably be greeted mildly or even a little bit positively," he said.

Nick Kalivas, vice president of financial research at the brokerage MF Global, said he believes investors will start buying back into the market again, but slowly and cautiously. "There's nothing in the short term that's going to give people real satisfaction," he said.