New York, Jumada I 15, 1436, March 6, 2015, SPA -- U.S. stocks retreated and oil fell Friday as a strong U.S. monthly jobs report confirmed expectations for an interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve (Fed) this year and possibly sooner than anticipated. U.S. employers added 295,000 jobs in February, easily topping estimates of 240,000, while the unemployment rate fell to a more than six-year low of 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent, the government reported earlier Friday. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down 1.1 percent in early-afternoon trade on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.2 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index was 0.9 percent lower. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell nearly 50 cents to below $50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The decline came as the U.S. dollar surged on bets of a near-term interest-rate increase from strong U.S. employment growth offsetting an earlier rally in crude prices on concerns about Libyan and Iraqi supplies. A stronger dollar makes oil, quoted and traded in the U.S. currency, more expensive for holders of the euro and other currencies. The dollar jumped to multi-year highs against a basket of currencies after the U.S. jobs report. --SPA 21:10 LOCAL TIME 18:10 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w