(New York) The New York Stock Exchange was trading lower at Friday’s close, weighed down by technology, with the bond market stretching as the dollar rose earlier in the day, after several Fed members expressed determination on Thursday. continue to raise rates.
Posted at 9:40 a.m.
Updated at 4:08 p.m.
According to preliminary results at the close, the Dow Jones index fell 0.86%, the technology-heavy NASDAQ fell 2.01% and the broader S&P 500 index fell 1.29%.
On Thursday, the indices had been slightly positive. The Dow Jones gained 0.06% to 33,999.04 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ index gained 0.21% to 12,965.34 points and the broader S&P 500 index gained 0. .24%, 4283.74 points.
“Wall Street is digesting the comments of several regional Fed officials”, who insisted on the need to continue monetary tightening to curb inflation, Wells Fargo analysts summed up.
The president of the regional branch of the St. Louis Fed, James Bullard, known for his positions favorable to a restrictive monetary policy, indicated “tipping at this stage, towards 75 basis points”, or three quarters of a point percentage, as in previous meetings.
He sees US key rates reaching 3.75%-4.00% instead of 2.25%-2.50% today.
Investors fled risky assets and took refuge in Treasury bonds, the price of which moves inversely to yields.
Those at 10 years climbed sharply to 2.97% against 2.88% the day before, the highest for a month, as did the dollar, a safe haven par excellence which jumped 0.56% for the dollar index.
Bond yields “are climbing around the world and this is affecting equities,” Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities told AFP.
He also noted “the very strong dollar which is putting the Japanese yen and the euro under pressure”. “It looks like the euro is going to slip below parity,” he warned.
very strong dollar
At 108.08 points, the dollar index, which compares the greenback to a basket of other major currencies, was close to its highest in several decades reached on July 14.
The NASDAQ, where many technology stocks are concentrated, riskier assets very sensitive to rate hikes, was the most affected.
Meta (Facebook) lost 2.47%, Alphabet (Google) 1.89%, Tesla too.
As for Apple, which also discovered a security flaw on its iPhones and iPads which “could have been actively exploited” by hackers, it yielded 0.46%.
The highly speculative stock of struggling home goods chain Bed Bad and Beyond sank 43% to $10.64 on the NASDAQ after one of its major shareholders defected.
Ryan Cohen, the boss of the chain of video game stores, GameStop – another viral action – has offloaded a stake of some 11.8% in the company.
Earlier in the week, he revealed he had acquired the stake, which made investors believe he was going to be a long-term partner and caused the stock to double in value within days.
Some investors felt they were wrong and called for an investigation by the stock market watchdog, the SEC.
Another failure, the online furniture distributor Wayfair fell by 13.80%, while it will lay off 870 people, or 5% of its workforce.
Deere & Co, the world’s largest agricultural machinery company, lost 2% after cutting its annual earnings forecast. The group reported difficulties in the supply chain and increases in production costs.
A risky asset par excellence, bitcoin fell 8.60% to $21,402 around 10:15 a.m. The virtual currency has lost $2,000 in the past 24 hours.