(New York) The New York Stock Exchange ended down on Wednesday and marked a break after several sessions of consecutive increases, driven by mixed corporate results and a mixed message from the American central bank (Fed).
Updated yesterday at 5:08 p.m.
The Dow Jones fell 0.50% to 33,980.32 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ index fell 1.25% to 12,938.12 points, and the broader S&P 500 index, fell 0.72% to 4274.04 points.
“The market had gone too fast” in recent weeks, “and we expected him to try to digest his gains from recent sessions,” commented Quincy Krosby. The Dow Jones thus ended five consecutive bull sessions.
Investors were also encouraged to take some profits by the exit from Target (-2.69% to 175.34 dollars), whose earnings, published before the market, were eaten (-89%) by discounts granted to reduce its inventories as well as rising transport costs.
Wall Street saw the publication of the minutes (the minutes) of the last meeting of the American central bank (Fed), at the start of the afternoon, as capable of restoring some momentum to the market, but it did not generated only a modest, short-lived rebound.
For Maris Ogg, of Tower Bridge Advisors, these minutes have not settled the debate which currently agitates the New York market as to the possibility of an imminent change in the path of the Fed.
“You could conclude what you wanted,” she explained, the members of the Monetary Policy Committee pointing to a deceleration in their monetary tightening in the medium term but saying they were still committed to rate hikes in the short term.
Kathy Bostjancic, of Oxford Economics, noted a “change in tone” of the Fed, which is no longer concerned only with inflation but also with the effects of its monetary policy on the American economy, which is slowing down, and showing , therefore, more cautious.
After the publication of the minutes, operators overwhelmingly sided with the assumption of a half-point hike at the September 21-22 meeting, when they were expecting 0.75 points a year ago. month.
For Maris Ogg, the job market is so tight that “you are not going to see a rise in unemployment similar to that of previous cycles of monetary tightening”, which “gives the Fed more room to raise rates “.
The indices also reacted only marginally to the publication of retail sales in the United States in July, which came out stable compared to June, while economists expected a slight increase (+0.1%). .
On the bond market too, it was time for profit taking. The yield on 10-year US government bonds, which moves in the opposite direction of their price, thus rose above 2.90%, against 2.82% the day before.
This jump in bond rates played against technology and growth stocks, which are sensitive to the cost of the money they need to finance their development.
They were also the first targets of profit-taking, which fueled the recovery of the equity market since mid-June.
Amazon (-1.85%), Alphabet (-1.79%), Meta (-2.57%) and Netflix (-1.85%) all ended clearly in the red, but the latter remains on the rise by more than 46% since June 14.
Apple (+0.88% to 174.55 dollars) swam against the tide, driven by information from the Nikkei group that the apple firm plans to move part of its production to Vietnam, which would reduce its dependence on China.
The DIY brand Lowe’s (+0.58% to 215.37 dollars) sailed better than Target in the choppy waters of the retail trade, despite a slight decline in its turnover (-0.3 % over one year), and maintained its margin rate, to the satisfaction of the market, with a net profit above expectations.
The action of the English professional football club Manchester United (+ 3.44% to 13.22 dollars), listed in New York, benefited from the attention aroused by a tweet from Elon Musk, later described as a “joke by its author, announcing that he was buying the team.
The owner of the Ineos group, Jim Ratcliffe, put a coin in the machine when his spokesperson indicated, still on Wednesday, to the Times of London his desire to acquire the legendary club, currently in great sporting difficulty.