(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened on a cautious note on Tuesday ahead of a speech by the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) scheduled for later in the day that will be watched closely for clues about the duration of the market. US central bank monetary tightening cycle.
In early trading, the Dow Jones index lost 163.84 points, or 0.48%, to 33,727.18 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.21% to 4,102.34 points.
The Nasdaq Composite was virtually unchanged at 11,886.76 points.
Questions about the future path of rates following the release of better-than-expected monthly U.S. job creation data continue to haunt investors, who are weighing the possibility that the Fed will take longer than expected to begin a lull in the rise in the cost of credit.
In this respect, the speech scheduled for 5:40 p.m. GMT by Jerome Powell is particularly awaited.
“A strengthening labor market theoretically makes it less likely that the Federal Reserve will halt interest rate hikes in the near future,” said Russ Mold, chief investment officer at AJ Bell.
“He (Powell) is expected to say pretty much what he said, which is that the market may continue to underestimate what the Fed is going to do, even though he said that it could raise rates once or twice more,” said Sam Stovall, strategist at CFRA Research.
In stocks, Microsoft Corp, which is expected to reveal its investment in the ChatGPT chatbot later today, is up 1.4% at the open, while Boeing, which has confirmed plans to cut around 2,000 jobs this year, is up. by 0.8%.
Bed Bath & Beyond plunges 44% as the US retailer seeks to raise around $1 billion in a last-ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy.
The action of the Chinese group Baidu, listed in New York, soared 10.1%, the search engine giant having indicated that in March it would complete the internal tests of its ChatGPT-type project called “Ernie Bot”.
(Written by Diana Mandiá, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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