While you were sleeping: UPDATED Oil price drop hits blue-chip stocks

Blue-chip energy stocks on Wall Street pulled most of the market lower as oil prices fell to their lowest since December.

The US dollar strengthened as better than expected jobs data cemented bets Federal Reserve policymakers will lift interest rates next week.

The ADP National Employment report, produced by the ADP Research Institute and Moody's Analytics, showed US private payrolls rose by 298,000 jobs in February, the largest increase in nearly three years and far exceeding economists' expectations.

"Powering job growth were the construction, mining and manufacturing industries," Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, says in the report.

"Unseasonably mild winter weather undoubtedly played a role. But near record high job openings and record low layoffs underpin the entire job market."

The government's nonfarm payrolls report is due on Friday. It's expected to show employers added about 190,000 workers to payrolls, according to a Bloomberg poll of economists.

Wall Street was mixed. At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 69.03 points, or 0.3%, to 20,855.73. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.06% to 5837.55 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index eased 0.2% to 2362.98.

'Equities at crossroads'
"Equities are at the crossroads of optimism and concern and are likely to go sideways until we get greater clarity from the Fed and legislative action," Minneapolis-based US Bank Wealth Management chief equity strategist Terry Sandven told Reuters.

In the Dow, slides in Chevron and Exxon Mobil shares, down 2.0% and 1.5% respectively, outweighed advances in DuPont and Microsoft shares, up 1.3% and 1% respectively.

Oil prices fell after Energy Information Administration data showed crude oil inventories rose more than expected to another record high.

Shares of Caterpillar declined after the New York Times said it reviewed a report that accuses the heavy-equipment maker of carrying out tax and accounting fraud.

"Caterpillar did not comply with either US tax law or US financial reporting rules," wrote Leslie Robinson, an accounting professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and author of the report, according to the New York Times.

"I believe that the company's noncompliance with these rules was deliberate and primarily with the intention of maintaining a higher share price," Ms Robinson says. "These actions were fraudulent rather than negligent."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index finished the day with an increase of 0.2% from the previous close. Germany's DAX Index eked out a 0.01% gain, while France's CAC 40 Index added 0.1%. The UK's FTSE 100 Index slipped 0.1%.

(BusinessDesk)