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(WASHINGTON) — The major party vice presidential nominees — Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance — sharply disagree on a range of issues. The differences in their personal finances are just as stark.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former teacher and member of the U.S. House of Representatives, earns about $127,000 in salary per year, retains no stock holdings and relies on a pension account as his primary asset, financial disclosures show.

By contrast, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, a former venture capitalist, brought in roughly $221,000 in 2022 from salary and book royalties, as well as hundreds of thousands in investment income, a U.S. Senate financial disclosure showed. He also held significant wealth in brokerage accounts and dozens of business investments, according to the financial disclosure.

Here’s what to know about the personal finances of Walz and Vance:

What are Tim Walz’s finances?

As governor, Walz earns an annual salary of $127,629.

In 2019, Walz reported a pension account worth as much as $100,000, as well as a life insurance plan with a value as high as $50,000, according to a financial disclosure that year.

Walz does not invest in any stocks, bonds or other securities, according to a U.S. House disclosure in 2019. As of January, Walz continued to forego ownership of any securities, a Minnesota financial form shows.

He does not invest in real estate, either. Walz and his wife, Gwen, appear to have sold their home in Mankato after gaining access to the governor’s mansion, the Minnesota form shows.

As of 2019, Gwen Walz earned income from a Minnesota public school and law firm Hogan Lovells, according to a U.S. House disclosure.

In all, the couple carried a net worth of between $112,000 and $330,000 in 2019, according to the disclosure. Tim Walz’s pension could add up to an additional $800,000 to the couple’s net worth, the Wall Street Journal estimated.

A disclosure filed in Minnesota in January offers little additional detail about Walz’s finances. Walz does not own a business, earn speaking fees or hold horse racing interests, the form said.

What are JD Vance’s personal finances?

Vance took in more than $1 million in 2022, according to a U.S. Senate financial disclosure form.

Those earnings included roughly $110,000 in salary at venture capital firm Narya Capital Management, as well as about $121,000 in royalty payments for sales of his book “Hillbilly Elegy.” Vance also made hundreds of thousands in investment income from holdings such as real estate rental fees and stock dividends.

Vance holds a host of assets, including brokerage accounts, cryptocurrency, real estate and investments in dozens of businesses.

In 2022, Vance valued his real estate holdings at between $500,000 and $1 million and declared possession of as much as $250,000 worth of bitcoin, the 2022 disclosure form said. A set of mutual and exchange-traded funds held by Vance was worth as much as $3.25 million combined, according to the disclosure form.

Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, earned more than $1,000 in salary from the Washington D.C.-based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in 2022, the disclosure form said.

In all, Vance and his wife boast a net worth of between $4 million and $10.4 million, excluding real estate, a Wall Street Journal analysis found.

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(Bloomington, Minn.) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has enacted economic policies in the state on key issues like job creation and taxes.

The track record, stretching back to 2018, indicates how he may approach such issues if granted the nation’s second-highest office.

His positions could also help shape perceptions of the Harris-Walz ticket on the economy, which ranks as one of the most important issues among voters.

Here’s what to know about where Walz stands on key economic issues:

Jobs

During his tenure, Walz has sought to boost employment in Minnesota.

In 2020, he enacted the $1.9 billion Local Jobs and Projects Plan, which invested in construction and renovation projects as a means of restoring employment after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, the state has lagged behind the nation as a whole in the number of jobs created since the outbreak of the pandemic. Total nonfarm payrolls in Minnesota have grown by just 0.5% since 2020, which lags far behind a rate of 5.8% nationwide over that period, according to a Reuters analysis of data released by the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Walz has signed into law a series of measures viewed as pro-worker. Last year, Minnesota established paid sick and medical leave, banned non-compete agreements and expanded protections for Amazon warehouse workers. In May, Minnesota enacted a measure providing a raise for Uber and Lyft drivers while averting a threat made by those companies to stop doing business in the state.

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization, praised the selection of Walz as vice presidential nominee. “We know that Gov. Walz will be a strong partner in the Harris White House, fighting every day to improve the lives of workers in communities across America,” AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler said in a statement on Tuesday.

Taxes

Last year, Walz enacted tax reform legislation that included a child tax credit worth up to $1,750 for each child 17 years old and younger in households earning up to about $96,000 a year

In addition, Walz expanded tax exemptions for social security payments as well as income resulting from student loan forgiveness.

To help offset these tax cuts, Walz enacted tax increases for some wealthy individuals and corporations. The state imposed a 1% surtax on capital gains, dividends, and other investment income that exceeds $1 million in a year. He also raised taxes for corporations that bring in a portion of their revenue abroad.

Minnesota is expected to end 2025 with a $3.7 billion budget surplus, according to a projection issued in February by the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget, a state agency.

“Minnesota stands apart from the pack with a moderately progressive tax system that asks slightly more of the rich than of low- and middle-income families,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-partisan think tank, said on Tuesday.

Tax Foundation, a non-partisan advocacy group focused on tax reform, on Tuesday pointed to Walz’s record of supporting some tax increases.

“Gov. Walz’s tax policy record is notable because of how much it contrasts with broader national trends,” the organization said. “In recent years, most governors have championed tax cuts. Walz, rare among his peers, chose tax increases.”

Economic growth and inflation

In recent years, economic growth in Minnesota has trailed the rate of growth in the U.S. overall.

In 2023, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product in Minnesota grew 1.2%, less than half of the 2.5% expansion nationwide, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data showed. The previous year, Minnesota’s inflation-adjusted GDP grew nearly one percentage point slower than the rate nationwide, according to BEA data.

Inflation in a key metropolitan area of Minnesota, meanwhile, is lower than the nationwide average.

As of May, prices in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington area rose 2.6% over the previous year, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. Consumer prices increased 3.3% nationwide over that period, BLS found.

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(NEW YORK) — Stock market gyrations this week came after a disappointing jobs report stoked concerns about an economic slowdown. The uncertainty drew heightened attention as the U.S. speeds toward this fall’s presidential election.

However, the economy has been gradually cooling for months, alongside falling inflation. The U.S. has repeatedly defied previous warnings of an impending recession, though economists disagree about whether current conditions pose an impending risk.

What is certain is that the economic outlook carries murky implications for the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, experts told ABC News.

A stretch of market turmoil in August will not meaningfully impact the outcome of the election, experts said, nor would a mild economic cooldown over the coming months. However, they added, an acute bout of economic weakness would damage prospects for Harris.

“On balance, it’s a wash in terms of the economic impacts on election prospects,” Stephen Roach, senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, who previously spent three decades working at Morgan Stanley. “It would take a much more severe downturn to begin to have a negative impact on the quasi-incumbency that Kamala Harris brings to the campaign.”

The recent stock market downswing was sparked by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. On Monday, the S&P 500 suffered its worst trading session since 2022. The index has since recovered nearly all of those losses.

The unemployment rate has increased this year from 3.7% to 4.3%, its highest level since 2021. That trend has triggered a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.

However, the labor market is still growing and the unemployment rate remains at a historically low level. Meanwhile, U.S. gross domestic product grew at a solid rate over three months ending in June, accelerating from the previous quarter and exceeding average growth in 2023.

“People aren’t micro-focused on what happens during two days in August when the election is in November,” Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who studies perceptions of the economy, told ABC News. “There’s a lot of reason to say, ‘Let’s not get worked up yet.’”

However, a potential acceleration of the economic cooldown poses a risk for Harris, according to the experts.

Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady at their highest level since 2001. Those high borrowing costs have weighed on consumers and businesses, slowing price increases while cooling the job market and putting the U.S. at risk of a recession.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week indicated that the central bank may cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. Such a move is widely expected by investors.

A sharp rise in the unemployment rate over the coming months could imperil prospects for Harris, Francesco D’Acunto, a Georgetown University finance professor who studies how people understand economic news, told ABC News.

“It’s really important for the Democratic ticket that the labor market is resilient until at least the election,” D’Acunto said, noting that he considers an imminent recession unlikely.

Ray Fair, a professor at Yale University who oversees a model that forecasts elections based on economic conditions, told ABC News that the election outlook has remained largely unchanged since the beginning of the year.

An update of the election forecast last month, only a few days after Harris replaced President Biden on the Democratic ticket, put Harris in a virtual tie with Trump. “From an economic point of view, the election is very close,” Fair said, noting that a mild economic slowdown had favored Republicans while falling inflation had benefited Democrats.

It would take a severe economic downturn over the coming months for that outlook to change, Fair said.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs economists raised the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year from 15% to 25%.

D’Acunto, of Georgetown University, said enough time remains for economic performance to shift the election prospects for Harris or Trump. But, he added, it is unlikely that conditions will change to the degree that would be necessary.

“Of course, it’s very hard to predict what will happen,” D’Acunto said.

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(NEW YORK) — After several of its brightest stars declared support for former President Donald Trump last month, Silicon Valley has now come out in force for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Though Silicon Valley remains a stronghold of support for Democrats, the Biden’s administration’s hawkish approach to tech has alienated many in the industry, and in recent months a number of high-profile entrepreneurs and investors including Elon Musk have backed Trump. But Harris, a Bay Area native with ties to the industry, could forge a stronger relationship with the Valley and has already received pledges of support from a new group called VCs for Harris — representing hundreds of prominent venture capitalists.

Leslie Feinzaig, the venture capitalist who started VCs for Harris, said she recently wrote a pledge and bought a URL to host its site without expecting much.

Within days, billionaire entrepreneur and television personality Mark Cuban and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined the group.

“I basically haven’t slept since,” Feinzaig said.

Feinzaig’s efforts have resulted in more than 700 pledges of support for Harris, and could signal a friendlier relationship between the vice president and the Valley than Biden has had.

“Silicon Valley had no friends in Washington during the Biden administration,” said Georgetown Law Center professor and technology regulation expert Anupam Chander. “You have the Department of Justice, which has filed those antitrust lawsuits. You have the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative, who have been retreating from efforts to ensure free flow of data across the world.”

And, of course, Chander said, you have Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who has gained an army of fans — and detractors — for leading an ambitious effort to regulate giants such as Amazon and Meta.

The Biden administration did, however, work to pass the CHIPS Act, which allocated billions to onshore the production of semiconductors used in many electronics — an achievement celebrated by the leading tech industry advocacy group as “a major victory.”

Still, leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the co-founders of investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, cited concerns about Biden’s policies in a podcast episode announcing their support for Trump.

“The future of our business, the future of technology, new technology and the future of America is literally at stake,” Horowitz said.

Despite continuing frustrations with the Biden administration, according to industry insiders, Democrats appear to retain the support of most in Silicon Valley.

“Many of us are frustrated with Biden administration’s sort of anti-technology, anti-business stance,” said Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Merci Grace.

Grace said voting against Trump would be “pretty easy” for her and most of her peers, 70 or 80 percent of whom she estimates will ultimately support Harris.

Feinzaig said some of the high-profile figures in the industry who have come out in support of Trump “weren’t speaking for the full industry.”

Still, Trump has made inroads in certain corners of Silicon Valley. In June, a fundraiser hosted by tech billionaire David Sacks in coordination with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance — a former venture capitalist with ties to another prominent conservative tech mogul, Peter Thiel — raised $12 million for the former president’s campaign.

Trump has also received endorsements from a number of prominent entrepreneurs in the cryptocurrency sector, promising in his 2024 platform to “end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown.” Also, he spoke at the annual Bitcoin Conference in late July.

The former president has taken a stern stance on big tech companies, calling them “too big” and “too powerful” in a July interview with Bloomberg, but saying “I don’t want to destroy them.”

Some expect Harris, meanwhile, to assuage concerns in the Valley by taking a more dovish approach than the Biden administration, though they say her policy views on tech remain an open question.

“I would expect to return to a more technocratic stance,” said Rob Merges, a law professor at U.C. Berkeley who spent several decades working in the tech industry. “A traditional Clinton, Obama — you know, friendly to the benefits of technology, reasonable in regulation, and cautious to not go too far in any one direction.”

Chander said he thinks Harris is “someone who recognizes the importance of innovation, but also worries about some of the harms that might follow.”

But, he noted, “because Harris didn’t go through a regular primary, we haven’t seen her stake out positions on some issues.”

Since Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21, Harris has not mentioned the tech industry in public campaign remarks and her campaign declined to comment on whether she would keep Khan at the head of the FTC (high-profile donors including Hoffman have recently urged her to do the reverse).

But the Valley needs no introduction to the vice president.

Harris dealt with the tech industry as California’s attorney general and has headed some of the Biden administration’s efforts surrounding artificial intelligence, working with top AI companies to agree on voluntary guidelines for the responsible use of generative AI. The vice president’s brother-in-law, Tony West, also serves as chief legal officer for Uber, headquartered in San Francisco. In remarks about AI in November, she said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”

Grace said she gets the sense that Harris is “a reasonable person who is very intelligent, and we can have a discussion with her.” She added that Trump “is just someone who you can’t trust.”

“It’s not worth the temporary alignment to make a little bit more money on top of the billions that you already have — to get in bed with someone who you can’t trust,” Grace said.

Feinzaig also shared her trust in Harris.

“I feel like we have a candidate that is listening,” Feinzaig said.

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(NEW YORK) — Stock prices worldwide seesawed dramatically this week, forcing investors to keep up with sudden turns in the market and weather fears of an economic slowdown.

The S&P 500 on Monday suffered its worst decline in a single trading day since 2022. In early trading on Tuesday, the index recovered more than half of those losses.

Japan’s main Nikkei 225 stock index on Monday dropped more than 12%, its worst trading session since 1987. On Tuesday, the index soared 10%.

Market analysts who spoke to ABC News urged investors to be patient despite pressure to either join a selloff or buy a downturn. The market typically experiences temporary periods of decline, they added, noting the strong performance for stocks this year prior to the recent losses.

Broad losses may offer investors an opportunity to buy low on a high-quality stock that they’d been eyeing anyway, some analysts said, but they advised seeking out stocks viewed as long-term investments.

“I wouldn’t be panicking in this environment,” Ed Yardeni, the president of market advisory firm Yardeni Research and former chief investment strategist at Deutsche Bank’s U.S. equities division, told ABC News. “It could be a roller-coaster ride.”

Recession fears and the unwinding of a ‘carry trade’ in Japan

The stock market downswing was set off by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.

The lackluster jobs data fueled concern about a potential recession and calls for an interest rate cut.

The heightened worry about an economic cooldown coincided with interest rate hikes imposed by Japan’s central bank. Those rising rates prompted an unwinding of a so-called “carry trade” in which investors borrowed Japanese yen at low interest rates and used it to purchase assets, including U.S. stocks.

When Japan hiked rates, investors sold off some of those assets and sent stock prices falling.

“There are a lot of things that have happened here in the past three business days. There are a lot of headlines flying around,” Bret Kenwell, an investing analyst at eToro, told ABC News. “It’s important for investors to remember the long-term trends in the market. They should have a lot of caution.”

Between 1980 and 2023, the S&P 500 posted a positive return over the calendar year 82% of the time, Wells Fargo Investment Institute told clients in a note on Tuesday. The market experienced a drop-off of at least 10% in nearly half of those years, Wells Fargo said, adding, “The data shows that a market downturn does not necessarily mean markets will perform poorly for the year.”

Market analysts advised caution as investors weigh opportunities to take advantage of the volatility. Still, they added, some traders may find a chance to obtain stocks that were previously too expensive.

Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at investment firm Wedbush, said the tumult roiling markets offers investors an entryway into major tech stocks at discounted prices.

“​​It’s a white-knuckle moment that we view more as an opportunity to own big tech and the AI revolution, which is not going away,” Ives told ABC News.

Nvidia, a chipmaker that had helped catapult market gains so far this year, dropped as much as 14% on Monday before recovering some of those losses. The stock climbed nearly 5% in early trading on Tuesday.

Shares of Apple fell as much as 10% on Monday, in part because Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett sold half of his holdings in the company. Apple recovered some of those losses by the close of markets but inched downward in early trading on Tuesday.

“Any global jitters and fears of market turmoil are going to be an overhang for tech stocks,” Ives said. “We stay calm and focused on the tech winners.”

Kenwell said investors should calmly evaluate their asset allocation, risk tolerance and long-term goals.

“When volatility is spiking and markets are selling off, it’s really easy to open your portfolio and panic,” Kenwell said.

“Follow your long-term plan,” he added. “That’s why it’s there.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Google violated U.S. antitrust laws in maintaining a monopoly over the online search business, a federal judge ruled Monday, in a landmark ruling for the Justice Department in its efforts to rein in big tech giants.

D.C. District judge Amit Mehta declared Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, finding the company illegally secured its dominance in the search market by paying billions of dollars to smartphone carriers like Apple to make Google the automatic search engine for their phones — effectively locking any rival businesses from being able to compete.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his ruling.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — A worldwide selloff jolted markets on Monday in the aftermath of a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report that elicited fear of an economic recession.

Japan’s main Nikkei 225 stock index dropped more than 12%, its worst day of trading since 1987. Each of the major U.S. stock indexes plummeted more than 2%.

Nvidia, a chipmaker that had helped catapult market gains so far this year, dropped as much as 14% before recovering some of those losses.

Renewed warnings of an imminent recession arrive after years of doomsday forecasts that stretch back to the staggering rise of inflation three years ago. So far, the U.S. has defied alarm and sustained solid growth, proving many analysts wrong.

Economists who spoke to ABC News disagreed about whether current economic conditions warrant serious concern about a possible recession or foretell resilience of the kind that has followed previous bouts of uncertainty.

Some analysts voiced optimism, pointing to continued economic growth and a tendency for markets to overreact in the face of negative news. Others cautioned of a monthslong labor market cooldown that indicates wider economic weakness and a potential downturn.

“You can see the probability of a recession moving slightly higher, but for me it’s nowhere near the level at which you jump out of the window because the house is burning,” Olu Sonola, the head of U.S. regional economics at Fitch Ratings, told ABC News. “You can still safely take the elevator or the stairs.”

The stock market downswing was set off by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.

The unemployment rate has soared this year from 3.7% to 4.3%. That trend has triggered a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.

Some economists have doubted whether the trend signals a recession in this case. That’s because the rising unemployment rate owes more to an increase in eligible workers that has expanded the labor pool rather than layoffs that have reduced the number of people with jobs.

The labor market is still growing and the unemployment rate remains at a historically low level.

“I still think we’re in the soft-landing stage,” Stephan Weiler, a professor of economics at Colorado State University and a former Fed research officer, told ABC News, predicting an outcome in which inflation returns to normal and the economy averts a recession.

“Some people expected this recession two years ago or more, and it still hasn’t come about,” Weiler added.

Some economists rebutted that rosy outlook, however. Nancy Lazar, chief global economist at investment firm Piper Sandler, said the uptick in the unemployment rate marks a key piece of evidence indicating a recession will take place before the end of the year.

“It wasn’t just a one-month number,” Lazar said, referring to the jobs report on Friday. “This has been a rising trend.”

The recent labor market cooldown took hold roughly two years after the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022 as part of an effort to dial back inflation. On average, Lazar said, the economy dips into a recession two-and-a-half years after the Fed begins a series of rate hikes.

“We’ve been expecting a recession to unfold,” Lazar added, acknowledging that Piper Sandler had previously forecasted a recession as early as the end of 2023. The firm had erred in part because it underestimated the staying power of pandemic-era government stimulus, she said.

“We’re now at the highest risk of the economy moving into a recession,” she added.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs economists raised the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year from 15% to 25%.

The market downturn has triggered calls for a large interest rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting in September. Some investors have voiced an even more urgent request for a rare emergency rate cut as soon as this week.

In theory, interest rate cuts would ease borrowing fees, unleash consumer demand and business investment and help the economy avert a downturn.

Economists, however, said an interest rate cut likely would not help the economy avoid an imminent recession, since rate changes typically affect the economy only after a period of several months.

Pointing to the market drop-off on Monday, economists said investors have a track record of overreacting to emerging trends in the economy. But, experts added, market swings can help bring about a recession anyway.

“Markets always tend to overreact to the upside and overreact to the downside,” said Sonola, adding that market sentiment may in turn weigh on business investment and economic activity. “It can be a self-reinforcing feedback loop.”

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(NEW YORK) — Stocks plummeted on Monday as markets worldwide reckoned with a disappointing jobs report last week that fueled concern of a possible recession.

The major stock indexes in the U.S. fell more than 2% in early trading. The S&P 500 fell about 4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped more than 6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell roughly 1,000 points, or nearly 3%.

The market downturn triggered calls for a large interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting in September. Some investors voiced an even more urgent request for a rare emergency rate cut as soon as this week.

Japan’s main Nikkei 225 stock index dropped more than 12%, its worst day of trading since 1987.

In early U.S. trading, chipmaker Nvidia plunged more than 14%. Apple fell more than 8%.

“Investors are feeling massive pain globally,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at investment firm Wedbush, said in a note to clients. 

U.S. markets, he added, are “trading heavy in the red across the board.”

Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs added, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Friday showed. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.

The unemployment rate has soared this year from 3.7% to 4.3%. That trend has triggered a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs economists raised the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year from 15% to 25%.

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(NEW YORK) — Stock futures plummeted on Monday as markets reckoned with a disappointing jobs report last week that fueled concern of a possible recession.

Each of the major stock indexes fell more than 2% in pre-market trading on Monday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped nearly 6%.

The market downturn triggered calls for a large interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting in September. Some investors voiced an even more urgent request for a rare emergency rate cut as soon as this week.

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(NEW YORK) — The major stock indexes dropped significantly on Friday after a weaker-than-expected jobs report stoked worries of a possible recession.

In early trading, the S&P 500 was on pace for its worst trading day in about two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen nearly 800 points, or about 2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had fared even worse, dropping more than 2%.

The stock decline on Friday followed unsteady performance over roughly the past month. Until then, stocks had enjoyed strong gains this year.

From the outset of 2024 through Thursday, the S&P 500 had climbed more than 15%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq had also seen double-digit increases.

The selloff is concerning since it’s rooted in a labor market cooldown that may signal a wider economic downturn, investors told ABC News. However, the solid state of the economy may very well allow it to weather the difficulty and send stocks back toward gains.

“We don’t think it’s the start of a bear market,” Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, told ABC News, ruling out the possibility of an outcome in which a stock index has dropped 20% below its most recent high.

“Today’s weaker economic data is certainly concerning,” Turnquist added. “We don’t think it’s pointing to an imminent recession, but it certainly changes the narrative.”

A weaker-than-expected jobs report is fueling concern about a potential recession and calls for an interest rate cut.

Employers hired 114,000 workers last month, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.

Still, the unemployment rate remains at a relatively low level in historical terms. Gross domestic product data last week showed that the U.S. economy grew much faster than expected over three months ending in June, according to the Commerce Department.

“The stock market is churning as investors try to figure out if current valuations are justified given the softening economic data seen in recent months,” Clark Bellin, president and chief investment officer at Nebraska-based Bellwether Wealth, told ABC News in a statement.

“Stock market volatility is very normal, and we believe the economy is still on a sound footing,” Bellin added.

The fresh jobs data extends a monthslong stretch of economic performance marked by the key conditions for a rate cut: falling inflation and slowing job gains.

In recent months, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has shifted focus to the central bank’s responsibility for maintaining a robust job market, in addition to its goal of controlling inflation.

“For a long time, since inflation arrived, it’s been right to mainly focus on inflation. But now that inflation has come down and the labor market has indeed cooled off, we’re going to be looking at both mandates,” Powell said last month at a meeting of The Economic Club of Washington, D.C.

On Wednesday, Powell said the Fed may cut interest rates at its next meeting in September, though he said the central bank would like to see further evidence that inflation is heading downward.

An interest rate cut would ease borrowing costs for consumers and businesses alike, which may rekindle economic activity and boost hiring.

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at North Carolina-based Independent Advisor Alliance, said it’s too early to tell whether the underwhelming jobs report on Friday foretells sustained losses for the stock market.

“If it turns out that this is just some noise in the labor market data and that stabilizes — similar to how we had some noise in the inflation data earlier this year before that stabilized — then this will be looked back at as a temporary period of weakness in the economy and stock market,” Zaccarelli told ABC News.

“However, if this is a beginning of a turn in the economy for the worse, then all bets are off,” Zaccarelli added.

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