Wall Street Tumbles as Job Losses, Bad Mortgages Pile Up

Updated from 12:15 p.m. EST

U.S. stocks climbed off their lows but were still trading in the red Friday afternoon, after the Labor Department announced that the economy lost more than half a million jobs in November, an even more dire decline than had been anticipated.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 105 points to 8272, and the S&P 500 gave back 9.2 points to 836. The Nasdaq stumbled 9 points to 1437.

Before trading commenced, the government reported that the unemployment rate reached a 15-year high of 6.7% in November, up from 6.5% in October but slightly below the 6.8% analysts had expected. Nonfarm payrolls showed a loss of 533,000 jobs, a much greater decline than the drop of 335,000 forecast by economists. ...