Wall Street Today | Amazon shares jump as cloud unit helps drive profit beat

Asian stocks face a choppy start Friday after the worst slide in U.S. technology shares since 2020. Concerns about tightening monetary policy have also intensified, sparking a selloff in sovereign bonds.

Futures for Japan and Australia fell, while traders are waiting to see how Hong Kong performs when it reopens from a prolonged holiday. The $NASDAQ 100 Index (.NDX.US)$ shed 4.2% and the $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ fell 2.4% as Facebook-owner $Meta Platforms (FB.US)$ suffered an historic rout that wiped out about $251 billion from its value.

Treasury market selloff resumes with global bond yields rising

The U.S. Treasury market was hit by a renewed round of selling as sharply rising European bond yields underscored the growing hawkish chorus among the world's major central banks in the face of surging inflation.

The drop in Treasuries extended global bond losses Thursday, when benchmark U.K. and German 10-year yields jumped more than 10 basis points after the Bank of England and the European Central Bank held policy meetings and signaled patent unease about elevated inflation pressure. The German 10-year yield, which had been below zero until this week, jumped to around 0.15%, weakening what had been an anchor on Treasury yields as European investors shifted money to the U.S. to get positive returns.

January jobs report could show omicron caused first steep decline in payrolls in more than a year

The sudden slam to the economy from the omicron Covid variant could show up in January's employment report as the first big loss of jobs since late 2020.

Economists have wide-ranging expectations for the report, which is expected Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists polled by Dow Jones call for a 150,000 gain in payrolls. However, many economists — like those at PNC, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Wilmington Trust — expect big losses.

U.S. draws most Russian diesel in years as cold weather descends

The U.S. is drawing more diesel from Russia this month than it has in at least three years as cold weather envelops the Northeast.

About 1.55 million barrels of diesel is en route from Russia to the U.S. for February arrival, a record in data going back three years, according to oil-data provider Vortexa. So far that represents 22% of the nation's diesel imports in February.

Amazon shares jump as cloud unit helps drive profit past estimates

$Amazon (AMZN.US)$ reported a strong holiday quarter, calming Wall Street's concerns that the company was headed for a slowdown.

Profit beat expectations, helped by the cloud-computing division, and investors cheered a price hike for the company's Prime subscription service. The shares jumped as much as 19% in extended trading.

Facebook feels $10 Billion sting from Apple's privacy push

Facebook's parent company served up a stark sign of how $Apple (AAPL.US)$'s new ad-privacy policy is roiling the digital-advertising world.

$Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (META.US)$ closed down more than 26% in Thursday trading -- a $230 billion-plus loss in market capitalization—after Chief Financial Officer David Wehner on Wednesday said the company expects the Apple policy to cost it more than $10 billion in lost sales for 2022, equivalent to about 8% of its total revenue last year.

Pinterest jumps more than 25% on earnings beat as tech stocks bounce back

$Pinterest (PINS.US)$ stock rose over 28% in extended trading on Thursday after the social media company reported fourth-quarter earnings and sales that beat Wall Street expectations.

Pinterest said that first quarter revenue would grow "in the high teens" annually, in line with analyst expectations of a 18% year-over-year increase.

Snap shares rocket as much as 62% on first-ever quarterly net profit

$Snap Inc (SNAP.US)$ reported its first quarterly net profit on Thursday, and beat analyst estimates for the fourth quarter on earnings, revenue and user growth.

The report comes a day after Facebook parent $Meta Platforms (FB.US)$ delivered disappointing guidance for the first quarter that dragged down several social media stocks with it. Snap fell 23.6% Thursday prior to its own earnings announcement but popped as much as 62% after hours, before settling up about 52%.

Source: Bloomberg, WSJ, CNBC