Fizzle, not sizzle, for markets after the jobs report

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No fireworks on Wall Street today after the March employment report, which showed the economy lost a net 80,000 jobs in March -- more than most analysts had expected, and another sign recession may be imminent or already here.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 16.61 points, or 0.1%, at 12,609.42. Broader indexes also were little changed, but winners edged losers on the New York Stock Exchange and on Nasdaq.

Treasury bonds attracted some buying as some investors showed renewed faith that the Federal Reserve would continue to cut short-term interest rates. The 2-year T-note yield ended at 1.82%, down from 1.89% on Thursday. But the panic to get into Treasuries in recent months has definitely subsided.

Pimco bond-market guru Bill Gross, on CNBC today, called Treasuries ‘the most overvalued asset in the world, bar none.’

For the week the Dow ended up 3.2%, thanks to the 391-point jump on Tuesday, the first day of trading in the second quarter. From their respective highs reached in October, the Dow now has pared its loss to 11%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 is down 12.4% and the Nasdaq composite is off 17.1%.

What about the recession threat? The stock market’s view, for now, seems to be that it can deal with a recession. What it couldn’t handle was the possibility of a financial-system meltdown, a risk that the Federal Reserve appears to have corralled since it opened its lending window to cash-strapped brokerages last month.