A New York Stock Exchange operator (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/SPENCER PLATT)
The New York Stock Exchange concluded on Friday divided, the Dow Jones barely managing to end on a positive note while the technology sector remained affected by the monetary tightening announced by the Fed.
According to final results at the close, the Dow Jones index climbed 0.40% to 34,721.12 points. The technology-dominated Nasdaq lost 1.34% to 13,711 points and the S&P 500 dropped 0.27% to 4,488.28 points.
Over the week, the three indices are in the red, down almost 4% for the Nasdaq, 1.13% for the S&P 500 and 0.28% for the Dow Jones.
“US stocks ended the day mixed but ended the first week of the new quarter with a weekly drop,” Schwab analysts said.
“Unease and apprehension appeared to dominate a relatively quiet session as investors continued to weigh the potential implications of a very aggressive US central bank (Fed) monetary policy tightening cycle,” they added. .
The outlook for severe monetary tightening in the United States, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the Covid-19-related lockdowns in China continued to cloud the economic outlook, Wells Fargo analysts also noted.
Adding to inflationary concerns, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) revealed that commodity prices soared almost 13% in March to an all-time high.
“Overall, this rapid monetary tightening is not expected to tip the US economy into recession,” said Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics.
“But if financial conditions were to tighten more sharply, with a steeper rise in borrowing costs and/or the dollar, then a mild recession would no longer be out of the question,” he added.
This pivotal movement by the Fed, confirmed by several statements by members of the Monetary Committee, considerably strained the bond market.
Yields on 10-year Treasury bills continued to climb on Friday to reach 2.70% against 2.65% the day before, the highest in more than three years, well before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The dollar rose to its highest level in a month against the euro, which slid to 1.0874 dollars for one euro (-0.05%) around 8:30 p.m. GMT.
“Wall Street watched bond yields accelerate,” climbing as the value of bonds shrinks, “and investors traded their tech stocks for more defensive cards like energy, banks, healthcare or raw materials,” explained Edward Moya of Oanda.
On the stock market, Tesla lost 3% to 1,025 dollars while Elon Musk, who recently acquired just over 9% of the capital of Twitter and became its largest shareholder, will soon meet with employees of the social network to a question-and-answer session.
According to the Washington Post, several Twitter employees raised concerns after Mr. Musk joined the board, saying in particular that the billionaire’s values were not in line with the social network’s corporate culture. .
Twitter dropped 3.75% to $46.23. Amazon lost 2.11% and Google (Alphabet) 1.80%.
Shares of semiconductor makers, which have risen sharply in recent months on supply chain issues, were battered after negative analysts’ views. Nvidia fell 4.50%, AMD 2.62% and Micron Technology 1.42%.
Robinhood, the popular online brokerage app, plunged 6.88% to $11.24 after a downbeat rating from Goldman Sachs. The company went public less than a year ago in August 2021 at a price of $38.
Boeing held back the Dow Jones, with the stock losing height (-1.56% to $175.20) after news that a freighter Boeing 757 broke in two on landing in Costa Rica.
© 2022 AFP
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