U.S. stocks finish lower as S&P 500, Dow industrials suffer three straight sessions of declines

U.S. stock indexes ended lower on Wednesday, with the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.39%
and the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.19%
booking a third straight session of losses as investors awaited more labor-market data for clarity about the state of the economy. The Dow industrials fell 70 points, or 0.2%, to end at 36,054, while the S&P 500 finished 0.4% lower and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.58%
retreated 0.6%. U.S. businesses added 103,000 new jobs in November, paycheck company ADP said on Wednesday, in another sign of slower hiring and a softer labor market. Investors will monitor jobless claims numbers on Thursday morning before contemplating the widely followed official data on nonfarm payrolls, wages and the unemployment rate, due out Friday 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.