Wall Street Ends Down After Mostly Negative Week

Wall Street finished lower on Friday, weighed down by big tech as investors worried about the Omicron coronavirus variant and digested the Federal Reserve's decision to end its pandemic-era stimulus faster.

All three main US stock indexes ended with a decline for the week after the Fed on Wednesday signaled three quarter-percentage-point interest rate hikes by the end of 2022 to combat surging inflation.

Nvidia dropped 2.1 percent and Alphabet lost 1.9 percent, both weighing on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

Adding to uncertainty, Pfizer said on Friday the pandemic could extend through next year. European countries geared up for further travel and social restrictions and a study warned that the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant was five times more likely to reinfect people than its predecessor, Delta.

Traders also pointed to year-end tax selling and the simultaneous expiration of stock options, stock index futures and index options contracts – known as triple witching – as potential causes for volatility.

"It's a big options expiration day," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey. "And now you draw on top of that some Omicron, and you've got volatility, and I think it creates a lot of uncertainty amongst investors. Where are you going to position for the end of the year?"

Heavyweight growth stocks including Nvidia and Microsoft have outperformed the broader market in 2021, while the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index has surged about 35 percent. The benchmark S&P 500 index gained around 23 percent in the same period.

In Friday's session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.48 percent to end at 35,365, while the S&P 500 lost 1.03 percent to 4,621.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.07 percent and ended the day at 15,170. (Reuters)