Wall Street: Almost stable at the end of the morning

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(CercleFinance.com) – As expected, Wall Street posted virtually unchanged scores on Wednesday in the absence of factors likely to influence investors, which did not prevent it from setting new records at the margins.

Late morning, the Dow Jones suffered some profit-taking following its recent historic highs, dropping 0.4% to 42,024.5 points, after setting a new high of nearly 42,300 points, while the Nasdaq Composite posted a small gain of 0.2% to 18,115.5 points.

Stock markets have hit record highs in recent weeks as investors bet that the Fed’s recent stimulus will help get the U.S. economy moving again.

But the beautiful mechanics of the indices seem to have stalled somewhat in recent days, with the Dow Jones unable to move more than 0.2% in one direction or the other, far from its spectacular progressions of past weeks.

The day also proved to be poor in indicators, which did not allow for dynamic discussions.

The only economic statistic on the agenda today was that new home sales in the United States contracted by 4.7% in August after jumping by 10.3% in July, according to the Commerce Department.

The average price of new homes sold was $420,600 and their average price, while the inventory of new homes ready for sale represents a supply of 7.8 months at the current rate of absorption.

On the value side, the automobile sector is weighing on the rating after a downgrade by Morgan Stanley analysts on GM (-6%) and Ford (-4%), due to economic deterioration in China.

Visa continued its decline (-0.9%) following a loss of more than 5% following the Justice Department’s decision to take legal action against the payment card issuer, which it accuses of anti-competitive practices.

On the oil front, the barrel of light Texas crude (WTI) fell by 1% to 70.8 dollars despite the announcement of a drop in crude, gasoline and distillate stocks last week in the United States.

The day will be marked by the new annual low reached by the dollar, which fell back below the threshold of 1.1210 against the euro, and the new absolute record for gold at 2,694.9 dollars per ounce, which now shows a gain of 30% this year.

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