While you were sleeping: UPDATED Wall St dip claws back 200-point gain

Wall Street climbed then crashed after the mid-afternoon release of US Federal Reserve minutes that suggested officials may begin reducing the central bank’s balance sheet later this year.

Earlier, the benchmark Dow Industrial had climbed 200 points and the Nasdaq reached a new high as better-than-expected US jobs data bolstered optimism about the outlook for the US economy and corporate profits.

The ADP Research Institute report showed US companies added 263,000 workers in March, far exceeding economists' expectations for 185,000.

"Job growth is off to a strong start in 2017," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said in a statement. Moody's produces the figures with ADP.

"The gains are broad based but most notable in the goods-producing side of the economy including construction, manufacturing and mining," hee said.

More jobs data coming
The government's non-farm payrolls report, slated for release on Friday, is expected to show US employers added 175,000 jobs in March.

Meanwhile, minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's March 14-15 meeting revealed policy makers might begin easing the central bank's balance sheet this year.

"Most participants anticipated that gradual increases in the federal funds rate would continue and judged that a change to the committee's reinvestment policy would likely be appropriate later this year," the minutes showed.

"Many participants emphasised that reducing the size of the balance sheet should be conducted in a passive and predictable manner."

Wall Street rallied then fell in the final hour of the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 41.09 points, or 0.2%, to 20,648.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.6% to 5864.48 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index eased 0.3% to 2352.95.

US government bond prices edged lower, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note rising to 2.352% from 2.350% on Tuesday.

Bid for bakery chain
In corporate news, Panera Bread shares jumped 13.8% to $US311.88 after JAB Holdings, which owns a slew of coffee brands including Peet's Coffee and Keurig Green Mountain, agreed to buy the bakery chain in a deal valued at about $US7.5 billion, including the assumption of about $US340 million of net debt.

JAB, which also owns Krispy Kreme Donuts, will pay $US315 per share in cash, the companies said in a joint statement. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

"We view the acquisition as strategically compelling for JAB," Wedbush Securities analyst Nick Setyan said in a note, Reuters reported. "We view the acquisition price as high enough to preclude a competing financial suitor."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index eked out a gain of less than 0.1%. The UK's FTSE 100 Index gained 0.1%, France's CAC40 Index slid 0.2% and Germany's DAX Index fell 0.5%.

European bonds slid after Bundesbank President and European Central Bank Governing Council member Jens Weidmann told Die Zeit the time was approaching for the ECB to ease monetary stimulus and that he would welcome a lower pace of ECB bond purchases in a year from now.

(BusinessDesk)