U.S. stocks closed lower Friday as concerns about China that weighed throughout the first trading week of the year persisted into the close. In U.S. economic news, the last nonfarm payrolls report for 2015 showed creation of 292,000 jobs, topping expectations. The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.0 percent. Average hourly earnings declined one cent, for an annualized gain of 2.5 percent, mostly because wages were unusually weak in December 2014. In international economic news, the People's Bank of China said it would further liberalize interest rates. The central bank also said it would make the yuan more international, keep the currency basically stable, further improve the currency formation mechanism, and deepen reforms of the foreign exchange management system and financial institutions. In corporate news, Twitter briefly fell more than 1.5 percent to hit a new all-time low of $19.60 a share. The dollar held about 0.3 percent higher against major world currencies. Light sweet crude oil for February delivery dropped 11 cents to $33.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while gold futures lost $9.90 to $1,097.90 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average declined 42, or 0.26 percent, to 16,470. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 6, or 0.29 percent, to 1,937. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 6, or 0.13 percent, to 4,683.
