By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 notched a two-week win streak Friday as Amazon’s swashbuckling gains led tech out of the clutches of despair after a surprisingly strong jobs report sent U.S. Treasury yields to multi-year highs.  

It rose 0.5% and fell by 0.06% or 21 points. The rally was 1.3%

U.S. 467,000 job openings last month were well ahead of expectations. They were led by employment gains in leisure and hospitality, which shone a light on expectations that the service industry would be affected by an omicron-impact.

While the average hourly earnings rose by 0.7% more than was expected, the unemployment rate climbed to 4%.

U.S. yields soared due to expectations of more aggressive Fed action. They jumped over 1.9% for first time since more than two decades.

Tech climbed out of early-day trouble against the backdrop of rising rates as strong quarterly earnings from Amazon restored sentiment on growth somewhat after Meta’s plunge a day earlier.

Amazon (NASDAQ) rose more than 13% after better-than expected fourth quarter earnings and guidance for fiscal year 1.

The bulk of earnings beat was led by gains from the company’s Rivian stake, but better than feared Q1 guidance and the move to hike the annual price of U.S. Prime subscriptions to offset costs also helped boost investor sentiment.

“Amazon’s profitability should expand as it grows opex more slowly than revenues. Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment by Amazon, and ads should drive steady margin expansion, with Prime memberships driving overall retail revenue growth,” Wedbush said in a note.

The day ended mixed for other megacap stocks like Alphabet (NASDAQ;), Meta Platforms(NASDAQ:), Apple (NASDAQ :), which sank from their highs. After plunging 26% Thursday, Meta Platforms saw their market cap drop to $250 billion.

Snap (NYSE:), meanwhile, jumped 58% following quarterly results that topped expectations,

The wild swings in markets recently, however, is expected to continue, and likely sets up rocky road for the weeks ahead until there is more certainty about the path of inflation and the Fed’s plan to tighten monetary policy.

“Volatility generally means bear markets … the fact that we’ve seen a spike in volatility doesn’t bode well for overall markets,” Darren Schuringa, CEO of ASYMmetric ETFs said in an interview with Investing.com on Friday. Volatility is set to continue until  “some of these other factors, primarily the Fed and inflation, settle down.”

Portfolio positioning would be best served by companies “that are able to pass on price increases to preserve their margins, and are growing the top lines,”  Schuringa added.

Next week will be a focus on inflation as data are expected to show that core consumer prices (which exclude food and energy) slowed in January. 

“[B]”Ase effects will continue to push y/y growth rate rates higher through February but monthly increases may begin decelerate as soon as next weekend,” Jefferies wrote in a memo.