(CercleFinance.com) – (CercleFinance.com) -The New York Stock Exchange ended down sharply on Thursday evening following the publication of statistics fueling investor concerns about the health of the US economy. At the end of the session, the Dow Jones dropped nearly 1.5% while the Nasdaq fell more than 2.8%.
After six sessions of decline, the US equity markets had managed to raise their heads on Wednesday, reinvigorated in particular by an intervention by the Bank of England well received by investors.
The latter were less pleased with the announcement of an upward revision of the inflation figures used in the calculation of third-quarter GDP.
The so-called ‘PCE’ price index – closely watched by the Federal Reserve – was indeed raised to ultimately show an increase of 7.3% on an annual basis, after an initial estimate of +7.1%.
Excluding the volatile elements of energy and food, the PCE in the ‘core’ version stood at +4.7%, compared with +4.4% in its previous estimate.
These data suggest that the US economy is still struggling to control inflation and reinforce growing skepticism about the Federal Reserve’s ability to lower prices without curbing growth.
As a result, all the S&P sector indices are moving into the red, with particularly marked releases for stocks linked to consumption and technology.
The European trend is for its part affected by the announcement of record inflation in Germany, which once again suggests an increase in the monetary tightening orchestrated by the European Central Bank (ECB).
All these figures, which came out above the consensus, added additional uncertainty and caused a sharp rise in sovereign bond yields, in the United States and in Europe.
The 10-year US Treasuries rate thus rose by five basis points to more than 3.76%.
On the foreign exchange market, the dollar fell against the euro, which appreciated by 0.5% to return to around 0.98 against the greenback.
The decline in the dollar does not favor crude prices (-0.4% to 81.8 dollars for WTI), no longer supported by the arrival of Hurricane Ian in the Gulf of Mexico.
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