Stocks on the New York Stock Exchange posted minor gains on Friday, however, this wasn’t enough to prevent the first weekly decline over the past 10 weeks. The benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.54%, recording its worst weekly performance since late October, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.59%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite tanked 3.26%.
Throughout Friday, stocks embarked on a turbulent ride as investors digested the latest Labor Department jobs report, which showed that more workers were hired in December than expected. This lowered expectations of interest rate cuts, thereby pushing equity futures lower.
Although the past week’s influx of economic data has given the Federal Reserve more reason to put off interest rate cuts, it appears as if investors remain optimistic that interest rate cuts will be timeously introduced. Traders have now priced a 66.4% chance of a 25-basis point cut in March, the CME Group’s FedWatch tool has indicated.