Wall Street: Closing in scattered order on Friday


(CercleFinance.com) – The Wall Street equity indices ended in scattered order on Friday, against a backdrop of rather disappointing macroeconomic indicators and corporate results. The Dow Jones fell almost 0.6% to 35,912 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6% to 14,894 points.

The New York Stock Exchange had been on a downward trend since the start of the year, with the rise in inflation and the prospect of monetary tightening by the Fed not encouraging investors to take much risk.

The economic indicators published in the morning did not encourage optimism either, painting a picture of very lackluster activity at the end of 2021 against a backdrop of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

Thus, retail sales in the United States fell by 1.9% in December, a surprise drop after a minimal increase of 0.2% the previous month, and industrial production contracted by 0.1%, affected in particular by milder weather than expected.

In addition, the morale of American households shows itself at half mast in January, according to the first results of the monthly survey of the University of Michigan, whose confidence index fell from 70.6 in December to 68, 8 for the current month.

The US equity markets also suffered from a disappointing start to the earnings season: JPMorgan Chase thus dropped 6.1% after the announcement of better-than-expected quarterly earnings, but with net banking income that did not failed to meet market expectations.

Still in the banking sector, Citigroup lost 1.2% with a decline in its fourth quarter net profit, but Wells Fargo won 3.7% on the back of quarterly results that beat expectations, thanks to its continued cost reduction.

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