JPMorgan Chase & Co., American Express Co. and Microsoft Corp. led declines in Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks trading in Europe after the government said the nation lost 533,000 jobs last month, more than the 335,000 estimated in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December slid 2 percent to 830.4 at 8:34 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 1.7 percent to 8,263 and Nasdaq-100 Index futures fell 1.8 percent to 1,114.25.

Energy shares in the S&P 500 tumbled 6.2 percent as a group yesterday on Merrill Lynch & Co.’s prediction that oil will hit $25 a barrel. The industry led a late sell-off in the market that helped push the S&P 500 toward its fourth weekly decline since October. The benchmark index is still 12 percent above its 11-year low on Nov. 20, having slumped 42 percent this year.

Benchmark indexes were poised to decline for the fourth time in five weeks. The S&P 500 has dropped 5.7 percent this week and the Dow average has retreated 5.1 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index has declined 5.9 percent.

China and the U.S. pledged $20 billion to fund trade and agreed to deepen financial ties, stepping up efforts to counter the credit crisis in their final economic talks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the extra trade finance will be supplied by import-export banks in China and the U.S. The money would be available to “creditworthy importers in developing economies” to finance exports from the U.S. and China and to benefit the global economy, Paulson said. “China is stepping up its efforts to promote global growth and stability.”

The U.S. also agreed to speed up approvals for Chinese financial institutions investing in the country, the nations said in a joint statement as the Strategic Economic Dialogue ended in Beijing today.

 SOURCE: Bloomberg