(New York) The New York Stock Exchange ended in disarray on Thursday, partly recovering after four consecutive sessions of losses for the indices, on the eve of a much-awaited US employment report.
Updated yesterday at 4:51 p.m.
According to final results, the Dow Jones index, which spent most of the session in the red, finally rose 0.46% to 31,656.42 points.
The NASDAQ remained behind, but far from its session lows, dropping 0.26% to 11,785.13 points. The tech-heavy index slipped below 12,000 points for the first time in five weeks.
The broader S&P 500 index climbed 0.30% to 3966.85 points.
“The mood shunned risk ahead of the jobs report” on Friday, analysts at Wells Fargo summed up, while Schwab analysts said the mixed performance of stock indexes came as a counterpoint “to rising bond yields and dollar”.
“The tightening of financial conditions comes as markets expect an increase in aggressive monetary policy from the Fed,” they explained.
Usually, the first day of a new month brings fresh money to the market “but so far capital inflows have not been much in September,” noted Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com. .
Investors are awaiting the crucial figure for job creation and unemployment for August, which will be published on Friday shortly before the opening of Wall Street.
Analysts are betting on 300,000 new hires and a stable unemployment rate of 3.5% after the very strong figures for July (half a million job creations) which surprised the market.
If the jobs report were to be better than expected, “it would likely strengthen the case for a third consecutive Federal Reserve interest rate hike of 75 basis points” later in the month, Patrick warned. O’Hare.
Bond market stress
The bond market tightened, with rates on 10-year US Treasuries rising to 3.25%. Those at two years were also up at 3.50%.
On the front of the indicators, weekly jobless claims fell to 232,000 to the surprise of analysts, showing a still tight job market.
The ISM manufacturing activity index for August remained close to its lows since 2020, while coming in better than expected at 52.8%.
Internationally, the bad news came from China where the metropolis of Chengdu (southwest), which has more than 20 million inhabitants, is subject to confinement, as part of the policy of Beijing has zero tolerance for COVID-19.
These paralysis of activity raise fears for demand, but also for the functioning of the supply chain, particularly in electronic components.
Oil prices fell more than 3%.
The end of the session allowed more sectors to return to green, with only three out of eleven S&P sectors remaining in the red: energy (-2.30%), materials (-1.38%) and information technology (-0.48%).
Listed, semiconductor maker Nvidia fell 7.67% to $139.37 after indicating that new US restrictions on the export of chips used for intelligence tools to China would affect its sales.
Its competitor AMD fell 2.99%.
Micron Technology, on the other hand, gained 1.38% to 57.31 dollars. The semiconductor maker will invest $15 billion over the next 10 years to build a chip manufacturing facility in Boise, Idaho.
Agribusiness group Campbell Soup dropped 2% despite results for the 4e quarter in line with forecasts, but down sharply year on year.
Sportswear and equipment maker Lululemon, which finished down 1.84%, rallied almost 8% in electronic trading after the close, after raising its sales and earnings estimates for the year.
On Monday, the stock market will be closed in the United States for the Labor Day holiday.
The decline of the Toronto Stock Exchange continues
The Toronto Stock Exchange continued its decline on Thursday, closing down for a fifth straight session, weighed down by fears of recession and falling commodity prices.
The Toronto floor’s S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 188.09 points to close at 19,142.72 points.
In the currency market, the Canadian dollar traded at an average rate of 75.95 US cents, down from 76.27 US cents the previous day.
The price of gold fell US$16.90 to US$1709.30 an ounce and that of copper fell 11 US cents to US$3.41 a pound.
The Canadian Press