Dow sheds 1 percent on wage drop, global uncertainty

U.S. stocks dropped sharply on Friday, pulling benchmarks back into the red for the year, as the December jobs report topped expectations but hourly earnings declined and investors tracked events in France after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

"It was a really positive jobs report. I know the market sold off here in an aftermath reaction, but we just had an incredible rally, it's a Friday, we have the situation in Paris, we're setting up for the upcoming weekend and we have earnings starting next week," JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade, said of investor unease.

"And then there's the crude-oil situation, until you see three weeks of stability in crude, it's going to spell volatility in the market," Kinahan added.

The CBOE Volatility Index, a measure of investor uncertainty, rose 7.4 percent to 18.27.

"It's been such a volatile week, people shouldn't read too much into one-day moves," David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds, said, referring to a week that has so far had the Dow Jones Industrial Average finishing each day a triple-digit move in either direction.

The figures from the Labor Department had the U.S. economy adding 252,000 to payrolls last month, and the November already robust gain revised higher, to 353,000, prompting stock-index futures to reverse higher ahead of the open.

But the enthusiasm proved short lived.

"We had better-than-expected payrolls gains, a drop in unemployment, but we didn't see any wage growth," Kelly said.

Another economic report had wholesale inventories climbing 0.8 percent in November, above estimates

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Dow sheds 1 percent on wage drop, global uncertainty