PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened on a cautious note on Wednesday despite a series of better-than-expected corporate results, as investors primarily await monetary policy decisions to be announced by the Federal Reserve.
A few minutes after the start of trading, the Dow Jones index climbed 11.41 points, or 0.03%, to 33,140.2 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 also rose by 0.03% to 4,176.86 while the Nasdaq Composite drops 0.09% to 12,552.89.
During the session, the Fed is expected to announce a half-percentage-point hike in its main interest rate, which would be the largest hike since May 2000, in an effort to stem inflation.
This new stage in the tightening of monetary policy is largely priced in by the markets, but investors are awaiting details on the number and scale of the next rate hikes as well as the terms and timing of the central bank’s balance sheet reduction.
They will therefore carefully study the statement from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) at 6:00 p.m. GMT and then the statements by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell during the press conference scheduled for half an hour later.
In the news of the results, the manufacturer of semiconductors Advanced Micro Devices wins 5.89% after a sales forecast higher than the market consensus.
Starbucks for its part takes 7.57% after better than expected quarterly sales, which take precedence over the suspension of forecasts for the rest of the financial year, a consequence of health restrictions in China.
Pharmaceutical group Moderna jumped 0.75% as the market welcomed the prospect of increased revenue from its COVID-19 vaccine in the second half. As for Airbnb, it posted an increase of 7.94% after forecasts that were also optimistic, thanks to the recovery in tourism.
In the red, the VTC specialist Lyft fell 30.24% after having disappointed expectations in terms of profit forecasts and dragged with it its big competitor Uber (-11.61%).
Of the 329 S&P-500 companies that had released their quarterly accounts as of Tuesday, 81.2% beat market expectations according to Refinitiv’s census.
(Written by Marc Angrand)
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