Wall Street: stabilization in sight?

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Wall Street, which suddenly turned into the red last night after a trying session, once again, for equities…

(Boursier.com) – Wall Street, which suddenly turned into the red last night at the end of a trying session, once again, for technology stocks, is trying to stabilize before the market on Friday. The DJIA climbed 0.2%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.1%. The Nasdaq fell 0.4%. The barrel of WTI crude fell 1.5% to $84.3 on the Nymex. The ounce of gold corrected by 0.5% to $1,834. The dollar index lost 0.1% against a basket of currencies.

Bitcoin drops nearly 8% in 24 hours below $39,000 as risky investments flee and Russia threatens a cryptocurrency ban amid risks to financial stability and political sovereignty monetary.

Fears persist over the speed of the Fed’s monetary tightening in the face of the inflationary threat. The high level of valuations and a wave of quarterly publications, so far muted, do the rest, justifying profit taking for many investors. The Biden administration’s fiscal stalemate does little to comfort. Finally, geopolitical fears are also very present, with the Russia-Ukraine file.

In economic news this Friday on Wall Street, the Conference Board’s leading indicator index for the month of December 2021 will be released at 4 p.m. (consensus +0.7% compared to the previous month). This is the only notable statistic of the day across the Atlantic.

Quarterly financial publications continue at a fairly brisk pace on Wall Street, in the aftermath of the disappointment netflix, with Huntington Bancshares, Ally Financial, First Hawaiian, IHS Markit and especially Schlumberger. The announcements will accelerate further next week, with IBM, Timberland and Halliburton on Monday.

Values

Intel plans to invest at least $20 billion in a ‘chip’ production facility near Columbus, Ohio, creating around 3,000 jobs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

netflix delivered subscription forecasts well below market expectations, against a backdrop of slowing growth and increased competition. The streaming giant added 8.3 million new subscribers to its services in Q4 2021, bringing its total number of subscribers to 221.8 million, in line with Wall Street expectations. On the other hand, the American group was much more pessimistic than expected for the beginning of 2022. For the 1st quarter of 2022, the group expects 2.5 million new paying subscribers, less than half of what analysts hoped. The FactSet consensus was expecting 5.8 million new subscribers.

Management explains its conservative forecasts in particular by the late release, scheduled for March, of several new productions, including season 2 of ‘Bridgerton’ and the film ‘The Adam Project’. Even though retention and engagement rates remain high, the pace of new customer acquisition has not returned to its pre-Covid crisis pace. “We think this could be due to several factors including the longer than expected aftershock of the pandemic, and the macro-economic difficulties that persist in several parts of the world”.

As for the fourth quarter 2021 accounts, Netflix reported a 17% increase in sales to $7.71 billion, a figure in line with analysts’ expectations. Profits reached $607 million, or $1.33 per share against $1.19 a year earlier (+11.7%) and much higher than the consensus, which was expecting only $0.83 per share .

CSX, the American railway group, reacted negatively last night on Wall Street, to the announcement of a fourth quarter yet higher than market expectations. Over the period, the group revealed an adjusted profit per share of 42 cents, against 41 cents of consensus and 35 cents a year before. Revenues totaled $3.43 billion in the quarter ended December, beating the consensus by 4%. They were 2.83 billion dollars over the corresponding period last year.

Platoon, who won last night on Wall Street, remains under surveillance. The group’s CEO indicated that the company was reviewing the size of its workforce and its level of production, in order to adapt to more seasonal demand. John Foley was reacting to Peloton’s stock price crashing following reports from CNBC that the group had halted production of exercise bikes and treadmills in the face of falling demand.

Twitter, the American social media network, has announced the launch of a feature allowing users to present their NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as a profile picture.

Pfizer has obtained special permission from the Japanese authorities to administer its covid vaccine to children aged 5 to 11.

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