PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange traded lower on Friday in early trade, as mixed U.S. inflation data and Federal Reserve monetary policy fears trumped giant Apple’s strong quarterly performance .
In early trading, the Dow Jones index lost 0.8% to 33,888.59 points and the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.6% to 4,300.41 points.
The Nasdaq Composite took 0.57% to 13,276.342.
While the PCE consumer price index excluding energy and unprocessed food increased by 0.5% in December, in line with expectations, this “core PCE” index rose a little more than expected over one year to reach 4 .9%, unseen since the early 1980s. Wall Street’s major indices are on course for their fourth straight week of declines, with investors broadly anticipating that the Federal Reserve will raise rates five times this year to counter the high level of inflation.
Bank of America even forecasts up to seven Fed rate hikes in 2022. “We knew monetary tightening was coming. we should expect a bit more volatility,” said Darrell Spence at Capital Group.
The 2.49% increase in Apple, which published record quarterly sales, is not enough to counter the risk aversion that dominates global markets.
In other corporate news, Visa climbs 5.67% after results beat expectations while Caterpillar sheds 3.23% after warning that rising production costs will weigh on its profit margin. quarterly operation.
(Laetitia Volga, edited by Sophie Louet)
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