NEW YORK >> Another rout hit Wall Street on Friday, with formerly high-flying technology stocks again taking the brunt, after a highly anticipated update on the U.S. job market came in weak enough to add to worries about the economy.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.7% to close out its worst week since March 2023. Broadcom, Nvidia and other tech companies led the market lower as worries continue that their prices soared too high in the boom around artificial intelligence, and they dragged the Nasdaq composite down by a market-leading 2.6%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 410 points, or 1%, after erasing a morning gain of 250 points.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 94.99 points to 5,408.42. The Dow dropped 410.34 to 40,345.41, and the Nasdaq composite lost 436.83 to 16,690.83.

Sharp swings also hit the bond market, where Treasury yields tumbled, recovered and then fell again after the jobs report showed U.S. employers hired fewer workers in August than economists expected. It was billed as the most important jobs report of the year, and it showed a second straight month where hiring came in below forecasts. It also followed recent reports showing weakness in manufacturing and some other areas in the economy.

Such a softening of the job market is actually just what the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, have been trying to get in order to stifle high inflation, “but only to a certain extent and the data is now testing Chair Powell’s stated limits,” said Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

Friday’s data raised questions about how much the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate by at its meeting later this month. The Fed is about to turn its focus more toward protecting the job market and preventing a recession after keeping the federal funds rate at a two-decade high for more than a year.

Cuts to interest rates can boost investment prices, but the worry on Wall Street is that the Fed may be moving too late. If a recession does hit, it would undercut corporate profits and erase the benefits from lower rates.

“All is not well with the labor market,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “The Fed wanted the labor market to come into better balance, but any balancing act is unstable.”

Still, the jobs report did include some encouraging data points. For one, the unemployment rate improved to 4.2% from 4.3% a month earlier. That was better than economists expected.

All the uncertainty sent Treasury yields on a wild ride in the bond market as traders tried to handicap the Fed’s next moves.

The two-year Treasury yield initially fell as low as 3.64% after the release of the jobs report, before quickly climbing back above 3.76%. It then dropped back to 3.66%, down from 3.74% late Thursday.

Wells Fargo Investment Institute’s Wren said he was surprised by the size of markets’ swings. While data has clearly shown a slowdown in the economy, he’s still forecasting growth to continue, “and it’s not the end of the world.”

Despite its dismal week, the S&P 500 remains just 4.6% below its all-time high set in July. It’s also still up 13.4% for 2024 so far, which counts as a good year.

A big reason for Friday’s sharp drops was weakness for some big tech stocks benefiting from the AI boom.

Broadcom tumbled 10.4% despite reporting profit and revenue for the latest quarter that were above analysts’ forecasts.