US stocks fall as November ADP jobs report misses expectations

• US stocks declined on Wednesday after the ADP employment report said 307,000 new jobs were added in November, coming in below expectations.
• US investors could point to good news across the pond, as the UK became the first country to grant emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine.
• Watch major indexes update live here.

US stocks declined on Wednesday, even as the UK became the first country to grant emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine.

The UK is expected to receive nearly 1 million vaccine doses by next week, with a total of 40 million doses on the way in 2020 and 2021.

Investors may have been disappointed by ADP's jobs report, which said companies added 307,000 new jobs in November, well below economists' expectations of 440,000 jobs and below October's revised figure of 404,000 jobs.

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Wednesday:

• S&P 500: 3,646.33, down 0.4%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 29,691.07, down 0.5% (133 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 12,228.04, down 1.1%

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The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant emergency authorization for Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine next week. Goldman Sachs released an estimate of when the vaccine could be rolled out to advanced economies.

Investors will likely have their eyes on Slack and Salesforce on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Salesforce announced a $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack as it looks to better compete against collaborative enterprise-software providers like Microsoft.

Oil prices edged higher. West Texas Intermediate crude rose as much as 0.5%, to $44.76 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, increased 0.5%, to $47.67 per barrel, at intraday highs.

Gold gained as much as 1%, to $1,832.56 per ounce.

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