Wednesday’s Mid-Day Movers: 3 Stories Driving Markets

The U.S. equity markets were relatively flat on Wednesday afternoon, with the Dow simmering down from a fresh all-time high of 14,320.65 earlier in the session.

At 12:20 p.m.: DJIA: +0.15%, S&P 500: -0.01%, NASDAQ: -0.17%.

Here are three stories moving markets on Wednesday afternoon:

1) With the tailwinds left over from the minor blip on the economic past that was the sequester still ruffling some feathers, the employment figures released by the payroll processor ADP Research Institute and Moody’s Analytics today showed that concerns about the across-the-board federal budgets cuts did not slam the brakes on hiring. Not yet, at least.

With 198,000 private-sector employees added to payrolls added in February, the labor market continued to show the slow but sure signs of recovery. However, February’s gains were still a month-to-month decline from January’s upwardly-revised 215,000 payroll additions, and still well below the 250,000 additions per month that economists say is needed to substantially impact the unemployment rate… (Read more.)