NEW YORK, Sept. 10 (Xinhua/Big News Network) — U.S. stocks fell on Friday as investors digested a slew of economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 271.66 points, or 0.78 percent, to 34,607.72.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 fell 34.70 points, or 0.77 percent, to 4,458.58.

The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index was down 132.76 points, or 0.87 percent, to 15,115.49.

All the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in the red, with utilities and real estate down 1.38 percent and 1.23 percent, respectively, leading the losses.

U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower with seven of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.

On the data front, the Producer Price Index for final demand in the United States increased 0.7 percent in August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, slightly above the market forecast of 0.6 percent.

Prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services moved up 0.3 percent in August after increasing 0.9 percent in July, showed the report.

“Supply chain bottlenecks have persisted longer and more intensely than most predicted at the beginning of this year, and widespread labor shortages are among the main input issues producers are dealing with,” Will Compernolle, senior economist at FHN Financial, said Friday in a note.

“The Fed’s focus has been on labor market tightening and what it means for tapering, but lingering supply chain issues are already starting to change the conversation about inflation,” Compernolle added.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is set to kick off a two-day meeting on Sept. 21, and investors will look to its policy update.

Meanwhile, rising COVID-19 infections continued to present a headwind.

Nearly 40.7 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States with over 655,000 related fatalities as of Friday afternoon, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Meantime, the U.S. dollar strengthened in late trading on Friday as market participants digested the latest economic data.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, rose 0.10 percent to 92.5779.

In late New York trading, the euro declined to 1.1815 U.S. dollars from 1.1829 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound rose to 1.3845 dollars from 1.3837 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar was down to 0.7364 U.S. dollar from 0.7371 a day earlier.

The U.S. dollar bought 109.89 Japanese yen, higher than 109.69 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar increased to 0.9178 Swiss francs from 0.9168 Swiss francs, and it rose to 1.2658 Canadian dollars from 1.2649 Canadian dollars.