by Claude Chendjou
PARIS, April 19 (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened in mixed order on Tuesday but the trend is broadly flat amid rising bond yields on the prospect of an accelerating pace of interest rate hikes. interest of the US Federal Reserve (Fed).
In early trading, the Dow Jones index gained 110.96 points, or 0.32%, to 34,522.65 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.19% to 4,400.37 points.
The Nasdaq Composite, on the other hand, lost 0.03%, or 4.01 points, to 13,328.34.
St. Louis Federal Reserve Chairman James Bullard reiterated Monday that he wants interest rates to rise to 3.5% by the end of the year in the face of inflation at a 40-year high, which would translate into 50 basis point rate hikes at the Fed’s six remaining meetings this year. He added that he could not rule out a 75 point increase in the cost of credit.
In values, the giants of new technologies such as Microsoft and Apple, sensitive to changes in interest rates, fell by 0.4% and 0.3% respectively, while the yield on 30-year Treasuries touched the 3% threshold for the first time since early 2019 and that of ten years a peak since December 2018 at 2.909%. The sector index of “techs” fell by 0.2%.
Twitter, whose stock rose more than 7% on Monday, fell nearly 2%, despite the interest expressed by several private equity firms in a possible takeover bid on the social network.
The actions of the major American banks are benefiting from the rise in interest rates. Bank of America gains 1.2% the day after the publication of a better than expected profit, Morgan Stanley takes 0.6%, Citigroup 0.9%, Wells Fargo 0.6% and Goldman Sachs 1%. The banking sector index advanced by 1.2%.
On the corporate results side, Johnson & Johnson fell 2.1% after the suspension of its forecast for sales of vaccine against COVID-19.
Hasbro, on the other hand, is up 1% on quarterly sales above expectations.