PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened lower on Friday after the publication of the employment report of the United States Department of Labor which showed a much stronger than expected increase in job creations in January and a surprise increase in wages , which revives fears about inflation.
In early trading, the Dow Jones index lost 89.13 points, or 0.25%, to 35,022.03 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 fell -0.19% to 4,468.85 points.
The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.09%, or 12.631 points, to 13,866.187.
An hour before the opening of Wall Street, the US Department of Labor reported that the US economy had created significantly more jobs than expected last month despite the resurgence of COVID-19, with 467,000. non-agricultural jobs against only 150,000 forecast by the Reuters consensus.
The average hourly wage, for its part, increased by 0.7% in January after rising by 0.5% in December, which brings its increase over one year to 5.7%, against a consensus respectively at +0. .5% and +5.2%.
“The jobs report really stunned the markets (…) not only did we have a surprisingly high number, but we had a very strong revision,” said Edward Moya, markets analyst at Oanda, referring to the revision. the increase in the number of jobs created in December, which is now 510,000 and not the figure of 211,000 initially announced.
The publication of employment statistics has taken precedence over company results.
In values, Amazon, which jumped nearly 20% in pre-market trading, only gained 9% in the first trades. The e-commerce giant on Thursday reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings and announced an increase in subscription rates to its Prime service in the United States.
The social networks Snap and Pinterest take 42% and 1.2% respectively, driven by their results and forecasts, the day after the fall of 26% of Meta Platforms (-2.2%). Facebook’s parent company recorded a drop in the number of daily active users for the first time in its history.
On the downside, Ford, down 10.8%, is penalized by the announcement of a quarterly profit below expectations. Its competitor General Motors fell by 3.7%.
In the oil market, Brent and WTI prices are rising to a seven-year high, well above $90 a barrel amid geopolitical tensions. This benefits oil stocks like Schlumberger and Halliburton, which advance by 2.5% and 2.8%.
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(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Sophie Louet)