Stocks Struggle for Direction on Jobs, Retail Data

Updated from 9:42 a.m. EST

After a downside open, stocks on Wall Street were experiencing spiky trading Thursday, as a slew of big-name companies announced layoffs and European central banks cut interest rates to mitigate a deepening recession abroad.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was falling 46 points to 8545, and the S&P 500 was down 5.5 points to 865. The Nasdaq slipped 8.4 points to 1484.

Layoffs and salary reductions were dominating the day's early headlines. Executives at Citigroup (C Quote), along with director and senior adviser Robert Rubin, were willing to go without bonuses this year, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse (CS Quote) announced plans to cut 5,300 jobs and said it expects to report a $2.5 billion fourth-quarter loss.

In other financial-sector news, The Wall Street Journal reported that credit card company Capital One (COF Quote) intends to buy Chevy Chase Bank for $520 million in a cash-and-stock deal.

The bout of layoffs and tempered guidance was not confined to the financials. Telecom company AT&T (T Quote) announced workforce reductions of 12,000, or about 4% of its employees, while DuPont (DD Quote) set plans to cut 2,500 workers.

"I'm not surprised," said Fred Dickson, chief market analyst at DA Davidson. "Given the depth of the recession, we're just going to see more of the same over the next three to six months." He also said that AT&T's planned layoffs, at 4%, weren't shockingly large, however. "In a given year, that may be close to a normal turnover amount anyway."

Dickson also said that the layoff announcements are directing investor attention to employment ahead of tomorrow's November nonfarm payrolls data. He said that the market appears to be taking the layoffs in stride, as it avoided a large gap down at the open.