(New York) The New York Stock Exchange, disappointed with economic data from China, moved slightly in the red after the opening on Wednesday before the publication of the minutes of the last monetary meeting of the Fed.
The Dow Jones index yielded 0.36%, the NASDAQ, which had started the session down, was virtually stable (-0.01%) and the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.14% around 10 a.m. (time from the east).
The markets had closed on Tuesday due to a public holiday. In a shortened session on Monday, the Dow Jones gained 0.03% to 34,441 points, the NASDAQ index gained 0.21% to 15,277.50 points and the broader S&P 500 index took 0, 12% to 4467.50 points.
“The negative trend has a macro-economic component and a geopolitical component,” said Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.
The analyst thus referred to the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released by the media group Caixin and S&P Global, which showed that activity in services in China slowed its growth in June to experience a slowest rates of the year, the latest sign of the country’s post-COVID-19 recovery running out of steam.
The index stood at 53.9 points last month, a slowdown from 57.1 in May.
A number below 50 reflects a contraction in activity. Beyond that, it indicates expansion.
The disappointing data comes amid a tense trade environment between Beijing and Washington, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that the Biden administration is preparing to restrict China’s access to remote computing services (cloud).
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is due to travel to China from Thursday to Sunday to meet with Chinese officials.
Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng called on Beijing and Washington on Tuesday to “take a step towards each other” during the meeting with Mr.me Yelen.
“We hope that the United States and China will each take a step towards each other” and “take steps to remove obstacles and manage their differences in order to strengthen dialogue and cooperation”, pleaded the diplomat, according to sources. remarks reported by Chinese television CCTV.
Relations between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated notoriously due in particular to disputes in commercial exchanges against a backdrop of technological rivalry.
On the home front, investors will scrutinize the “minutes” of the US central bank’s mid-June monetary meeting where it had paused in its rate hikes after ten consecutive hikes in order to curb inflation.
It is a question of detecting its intentions for the future, knowing that Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, has since indicated several times that two other rate hikes were very possible.
In the bond market, ten-year yields were almost stable at 3.86%.
Listed electric vehicle maker Rivian, which soared more than 17% on Monday, gained 2.30% around 10 a.m. EST as the group reported a jump in deliveries vehicles in the previous quarter which exceeded the 11,000 forecast by analysts.
Tesla was also up (+0.57%).
Vaccine maker Moderna climbed 5.30% to $128.18. The American laboratory has signed a memorandum of understanding with China to produce drugs there for the Chinese market, he announced on Wednesday. The investment could amount to a billion dollars, according to a Chinese media.
Asked by AFP, Moderna – which has developed one of the very first messenger RNA vaccines against COVID-19 – did not confirm the amount of the investment. He said, however, that a memorandum of understanding had indeed been signed.
Express carrier UPS dropped more than 2% as wage negotiations stalled with the drivers’ union, raising the threat of a strike.
Shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase fell 2.65% after an analyst raised doubts about the company’s profitability as the US regulator, the SEC, takes the platform to court for non-compliance with regulations.