(CercleFinance.com) – The New York Stock Exchange moved in disorganized fashion on Tuesday morning, penalized by the heaviness of Nvidia and the semiconductor sector in general, which obscures the strength of values linked to consumption.
At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones managed to nibble 0.1% to 38,654.8 points, but the Nasdaq Composite dropped almost 1% to 15,622.8 points.
Investors seem not to want to commit too much before the announcement tomorrow evening of Nvidia’s highly anticipated quarterly results, whose performance will be closely monitored by the market.
‘The publication will be decisive, knowing that the ‘Magnificent Seven’ have fueled the progression of the markets this year with a gain of 10.65% since January 1,’ recalls Jim Reid, market analyst at Deutsche Bank.
‘Among them, it was Nvidia which had the best performance in the S&P 500 index, with an increase of 46.63% this year,’ he adds.
In this context of caution, Nvidia fell by more than 5%, just like AMD or Applied Materials, while the semiconductor compartment lost 2.2%.
Among the companies having published their results at the start of the day, Walmart gained 4% after reporting solid quarterly results, raising its annual objectives and increasing the amount of its dividend.
Home Depot lags behind (+0.7%) after reporting a 14% decrease in 4th quarter profit, on the basis of sales down 2.9% to 34.8 billion (- 3.5% like-for-like).
On the rise, agri-food stocks are benefiting from encouraging comments made by several players in the sector during the ‘CAGNY’ conference dedicated to mass consumption in Boca Raton (Florida).
Kraft Heinz thus progressed by 2%, followed by Campbell Soup and General Mills, the latter having taken advantage of the event to confirm its annual objectives.
On the bond side, the yield on ten-year Treasuries fell towards 4.25% after a more marked decline than expected in the Conference Board leading indicators index, which reinforces the scenario of future rate cuts.
This precursor index, which foreshadows the general economic trend for the months to come, decreased by 0.4% in January, to 102.7, after a drop of 0.2% in December.
But the Conference Board says it no longer expects a recession in the United States this year, simply counting on growth close to zero in the second and third quarters.
On the oil markets, crude oil prices are falling again, fears of a slower-than-expected recovery in demand in China outweighing the new support measures taken by Beijing.
American light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) fell 1% to $78.40.
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