The US stock market looked set to go up on Monday.
Spencer Platt is a photographer.
US stocks ended their first week of the new century lower as investors digest a December jobs report that missed expectations and try to plan for the Federal Reserve's looming interest rate hikes.
The tech-laden index suffered its worst week in over a year.
The US indexes were at 4:00 p.m. On Friday.
During the first week of 2022, the stock market fluctuated between gains and losses as investors looked at signals from the Fed. The Federal Open Market Committee's December meeting minutes showed policymakers were looking at a faster than anticipated monetary policy tightening.
In December of 2021, the Omicron variant fueled another wave of coronavirus cases and economic restrictions, as hiring fell again. The report was not good.
The US added 199,000 jobs last month, far less than the economists expected. The print showed that hiring slowed in the last weeks of the year.
According to the report, the job growth in November was revised to 249,000.
Edward Moya, senior equity analyst at Oanda, said in a note Friday that a big deceleration in hiring will not change the Fed's course. Today's payroll report needed a good look at all the numbers and not just the headline miss. Wages and the unemployment rate are being looked at by Wall Street.
Wages for US workers rose again in December 2021, marking the year of blockbuster wage growth, as a result of the weak jobs report.
The labor shortage problem is forcing employers to raise wages and with the unemployment rate improving to the best level since February 2020, the Fed can say the US is at maximum employment.
Chris Zaccarelli, CIO at Independent Advisor Alliance, said in a note Friday that inflation remains the main concern for the central bank.
He said that the report was unlikely to change the Fed's mind on an accelerated rate hike and balance sheet management approach.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note went up. Bond yields move with prices.
A report said that the games retailer is close to creating a marketplace for non-fungible token, or NFTs, and that it is close to signing partnerships with cryptocurrencies.
The price of the digital currency fell for a sixth day in a row to a three-month low. The total market value of cryptocurrencies has fallen to less than $2 trillion.
The price of lumber rose for the fourth session in a row. The price of the commodity was $1,234 per thousand board feet at one point.
Oil prices were lower. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude was down 0.73%. Oil's international benchmark, called Brent crude, lost 0.28%.
The price of gold increased by 0.29%.
Business Insider has an original article.
