Wall Street closes first week of '22 with declines

Wall Street had a choppy start to the New Year, wrapping up the week with losses on the day and the week. Looming interest rate hikes made investors skittish about stocks.

The latest U.S. labor report out Friday showed the jobs market was at or near maximum employment even though jobs growth rose far less than expected last month amid worker shortages.

Warren Financial CEO Randy Warren:

"I think it says the economy is pretty strong and we should be expecting a reopening surge in the economy."

That thinking fueled bets that the Federal Reserve would aggressively tighten monetary policy, pushing up Treasury yields for a fifth straight session.

And that sent interest rate-sensitive tech stocks down but economically-sensitive sectors like bank and energy up.

The Dow finished nearly flat. But tech stocks dragged down the S&P 500 four-tenth percent and the Nasdaq almost 1%.

The favorite of the "meme stock" crowd, GameStop, jumped 7%. The video game retailer said it will expand its marketplace for non-fungible tokens, which use blockchain to record ownership of digital items such as images or videos.

No jab, no job. Citigroup gave its unvaccinated employees in the U.S. until January 14 to get the COVID-19 shot or get fired at month's end. Shares rose more than 1%.