us stocks closed lower tuesday snapping a fourday wining streak as investors weighed new declines in factory orders data hinting at a softening labor market ahead of fridays jobs report and what that means for recession fears and interest rates stocks finished lower tuesday as investors weighed more signs of a slowing economy the number of us job openings in february fell to a 21month low according to labor department data there were 99 million openings fewer than analyst expectations for 105 million openings and its down from 106 million job openings in january meanwhile orders for manufactured goods fell for the third time in the past four months the 07 drop in february was slightly larger than the 06 expectation from economists surveyed by the wall street journal trading at the start of the second quarter is being dragged by numbers indicating weaker economic growth in march said matthew miskin cochief investment strategist at john hancock investment management weaker growth is going to mean weaker profits and thats going to be tough for equities to navigate he said readwe are going to see parts of the economy break recession fears move back to the forefront of markets still stocks decline on tuesday may just reflect a technical pullback and may not stem from the job openings data said james ragan director of wealth management research at da davidson we are still kind of in a position where the bad news can be good news said ragan the narrative still holds but sometimes it doesnt always hold on a day to day basis said ragan the federal reserve may view the falling job openings as a sign that the mismatch between supply and demand of labor is slowly resolving meaning less potential inflation pressure said mark hamrick senior economic analyst at bankrate read also wall street is more pessimistic about stocks than in late 2008 this could be a reason to buy bofa says it remains unclear if the stock markets recent rally can hold while stocks posted strong gains at the end of first quarter when you look below the surface it wasnt as broadbased as the overall indexing ragan said the average companies are not doing as well as the large cap leaders so that tells us the leadership has narrowed a bit in recent weeks with really these mega capitalization technology sector companies leading the way ragan said in a call that makes us a little nervous about how sustainable the rally would be whats more its been nearly a month since silicon valley bank and signature bank suddenly shuttered but jamie dimon chief executive at jpmorgan chase  co said the banking sector crisis is not done dimon emphasized though in his annual shareholder letter that recent events are nothing like what occurred during the 2008 global financial crisis which barely affected regional banks while investors keep an eye on banks they are weighing new dynamics in the oil markets after opec members announced surprise production cuts which pushed oil prices higher on monday while they slightly pulled back tuesday investors are expecting comments from cleveland fed president loretta mester due 6 pm mester is not a voting member of the feds benchmark interest rate committee a week shortened for the good friday holiday which will close the us stock market on april 7 is encouraging investors to sit on their hands but the march nonfarm payrolls report will still be published on that day and traders will be wary of being badly positioned and not able to immediately react next week also sees the start of the firstquarter corporateearnings season possibly another reason for caution this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal