PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened in mixed order on Thursday after the publication of an employment indicator which shows the resilience of the labor market, which is likely to temper the pace of rate cuts expected this year.
In early trading, the Dow Jones index gained 78.68 points, or 0.21%, to 37,508.87 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.02% to 4,705.99 points.
The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.27%, or 39.55 points, to 14,552.65.
A little more than an hour before the opening of Wall Street, the monthly survey from the ADP firm showed that the private sector in the United States had created more jobs than expected in December, i.e. 164,000 after 101,000 in November.
The Labor Department’s employment report will be released Friday.
“This raises the question of whether tomorrow’s official employment data will be higher than market expectations,” says Peter Cardillo, chief economist at Spartan Capital Securities.
“That works in favor of those who are expecting a soft landing (of the economy). But let’s not forget that we had a great rally and that what we are seeing, what we have seen over the last two days, is a technical adjustment,” he added.
Bets of a reduction in rates by the American Federal Reserve (Fed) from March in fact strengthened at the end of last year. The minutes of the Fed’s latest monetary policy meeting, published Wednesday evening, however, provided little insight into the timetable for this decline hoped for by the markets.
Traders are currently betting with a 66.4% probability that the cost of credit will be reduced by at least 25 basis points in two months and a 95% probability that this will occur in May, according to CME’s Fedwatch barometer. Group.
On the bond market, yields on US Treasury bonds tightened after the publication of the ADP survey and the ten-year rose almost eight basis points, to 3.9893% at the opening of Wall Street.
In terms of values, Apple fell by 1.2% after its downgrade to “neutral” by Piper Sandler, two days after Barclays lowered its advice.
Intel’s subsidiary (-1.78%), Mobileye Global, plunges 26.07% after the warning on its annual turnover, which shakes other chip suppliers like NXP Semiconductors (-4. 96%), Onsemi (-4.41%), Texas Instruments (-1.61%) and Wolfspeed (-4.38%).
Nike, Under Armor and Foot Locker fell from 0.94% to 2.38% after the warning from the British distributor JD Sports on its annual profit forecast.
Walgreens falls 10.40% after cutting its dividend nearly in half to save more money, even though the company’s cost-cutting measures helped it post a better-than-expected quarterly profit.
(Writing by Claude Chendjou, edited by Kate Entringer)
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