us stocks traded mostly lower on wednesday afternoon as investors weighed data on privatesector employment and the services sector while awaiting a march jobs report that will be released on good friday a market holiday on tuesday the dow and sp 500 snapped fourday winning streaks while the nasdaq composite dropped 05 the rally in us stocks of the past two weeks has stalled for now as investors ponder whether to be pleased that weaker economic data of late has trimmed bond yields or to be wary of the business downturn those trends foretell adp said privatesector employers added 145000 jobs in march well below the 210000 expected by economists surveyed by the wall street journal meanwhile the institute for supply managements service sector activity index a bellwether of business conditions at us companies fell to a threemonth low of 512 in march and signaled slackening growth as strains mount on the economy numbers above 50 indicate companies are expanding but the latest survey suggests growth has taken a sharp turn for the worse the recent comments from purchasing managers implies a weakening outlook for both businesses and consumers said jeffrey roach chief economist for lpl financial as the economy slows and inflation decelerates the fed will be in a better position to pause the current rate hiking campaign as the economy recalibrates investors should expect market volatility to dampen from here see we are going to see parts of the economy break recession fears move back to the forefront of markets we are starting to see growing evidence that the us economy is heading towards a recession said edward moya analyst at oanda theres a risk that the federal reserve might have overtightened its monetary policy with growing evidence that points to a potential recession while the banking crisis is not over noted moya there are a lot of risks on the table the 2year treasury yield  which is particularly sensitive to monetary policy expectations fell to 3747 on wednesday the lowest intraday level in almost two weeks the yield on the 2year us treasury note topped 5 and rose to its highest level since 2007 in early march the extent to which the federal reserves yearlong campaign to raise interest rates to combat inflation has impacted the economy may be become clearer in coming days the march jobs report will take center stage later this week when us stock exchanges are closed for the good friday holiday the march jobs report is expected to show 238000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added to the us economy last month while the unemployment rate is set to hold steady at 36 according to economists polled by dow jones in february the us economy created a robust 311000 new jobs keeping the pressure on the federal reserve to raise interest rates even further to tame high inflation read good friday complicates how stockmarket trader will digest march us jobs report 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