Stocks fell on Friday to end a rough first trading week of the year, as tech shares were battered by rising interest rates.
The Nasdaq Composite dropped another 0.9% on Friday to close at 14,935.90. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% to 4,677.03 for its first four-day losing streak since September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.81 points, or about 0.01%, to close at 36,231.66.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq posted its worst week since February 2021, down about 4.5% in the first five trading days of 2022. The S&P 500 was off by 1.8%, while the Dow lost only 0.29% as investors rotated into some value stocks amid the rise in rates.
“The stock market is undergoing somewhat of a transition right now, after a very strong 2021,” said Jay Pestrichelli, co-founder of ZEGA Financial. “We are seeing more volatility in individual stocks compared to the indexes, and we are seeing a change in leadership in the market, as investors reconsider the high-flying tech stocks of 2021 as interest rates rise.”
The 10-year Treasury yield topped 1.8% on Friday, continuing its 2022 run from a 2021 year-end level of just 1.51%. The release of the Federal Reserve’s December meeting minutes on Wednesday were the major catalyst for the rate move. The meeting notes showed the central bank is ready to dial back its economic help more rapidly than some had anticipated, including taking steps to shrink its balance sheet while raising rates.
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“A shift in Fed policy often injects volatility into markets,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist.
Tech stocks lost ground further on Friday as yields jumped. With rates rising rapidly, investors are dumping riskier stocks trading on high valuations based on estimates of profit growth far off in the future.
Microchip Technology was one of the biggest decliners in the Nasdaq, down 3.9%. Other semiconductor stocks fell too, with Nvidia and AMD both down more than 3%. Netflix fell 2.2%. Twilio lost 3.5%.
Disappointing jobs report
On Friday, the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in December than expected. The nonfarm payrolls report showed an increase of 199,000 in December, though economists had expected growth of 422,000, according to Dow Jones.
While the headline number disappointed, there were some things in this jobs report that pointed to an improving economic picture and higher inflation. Average hourly earnings increased by 0.6%, above expectations. And the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, the lowest level since February 2020 and well below the 4.1% expected.
So after some digestion following the jobs report, yields continued their march higher.
Software stocks were among the hardest hit shares for the week amid the rotation out of tech, with Salesforce down 10%, and Adobe down more than 9% for the week. CrowdStrike moved 7.7% lower. Nearly all megacap tech stocks finished the week lower. Netflix has lost 10% for the week, Microsoft which ended the day slightly higher, fell 6.6% for the week. Alphabet fell more than 5%.
However, while tech stocks drove most of the market losses, value names showed strength, particularly among energy and financial stocks. Schlumberger and Hess climbed about 17% for the week. Wells Fargo rose 14.1% this week, and Regions Financial gained 15.2%.
Elsewhere, GameStop shares jumped 7.3% Friday following news that the company is venturing into the crypto world with investments in a marketplace for nonfungible tokens and digital currency partnerships to create games and other items.
