WALL Street stocks slipped back after another fleeting bid to put the finishing touches to the market's rebound from last week's turmoil.
The Dow Jones industrial average erased an early 52-point deficit and briefly moved higher, but dipped 9.33 points to 7,683.24 by the close, leaving it about 32 points shy of a complete recovery from the 554-point plunge of 10 days ago.
Broader stock measures also recovered partially during the afternoon as interest rates fell in the bond market, which rallied amid signs of strong demand at the auction of new Treasury debt securities.
Many economists expect the labour department to report today that the October unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 per cent from 4.9 per cent in September.
But the absence of rising prices, combined with the recent stock market sell-off, has convinced analysts that Federal Reserve officials won't try to slow the economy by raising interest rates when they meet next week.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by four to three on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,233 up, 1,681 down and 510 unchanged.
NYSE volume totalled 522.17 million shares, against 564.90 million in the previous session.
The Standard and Poor's 500-stock list fell 4.73 to 938.03, and the NYSE composite index fell 2.02 to 493.75.
The Nasdaq composite index fell 13.87 to 1,623.46, the American Stock Exchange composite index fell 2.64 to 687.71, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 1.93 to 442.83.
