(New York) The New York Stock Exchange marks time on Thursday, moving in a dispersed order around balance after a good start to the week linked to reassuring data on the evolution of inflation.
The Dow Jones lost 0.09%, the technology-dominated NASDAQ gained 0.05% and the S
On Wednesday, the indices continued to make gains following the publication the day before of lower-than-expected inflation (3.2% over one year), seeming to render obsolete the attempts of the Federal Reserve (Fed) another rate hike.
The Dow Jones index gained 0.47% to 34,991.21 points, the NASDAQ gained 0.07% to 14,103.84 points and the S
On Thursday, the Department of Labor revealed weekly applications for employment benefits up sharper than expected at 231,000 (13,000), a 12-week high.
“The lesson to be learned from this is that this suits the Fed, whose preferred scenario would be to see an easing of the employment market”, which helps in the fight against inflation, indicated Patrick O’ Hare from Briefing.com.
On the inflation side, a drop in import prices in October in the United States (-0.8%), led by the fall in energy costs, “is an additional encouraging element on the inflation front. rising prices,” said Matthew Martin, economist for Oxford Economics. This is the first time in three months that import prices have fallen.
Finally, industrial production in October slowed more than expected (-0.6%), notably due to the impact of major strikes in the automobile industry which lasted six weeks.
Manufacturing production alone thus fell by 0.7%, a decline of which “a large part” is “due to a 10% drop in the production of motor vehicles and their spare parts, affected by the strikes of several large manufacturers of motor vehicles,” the Fed said.
On the bond market, yields on ten-year notes fell to 4.44% compared to 4.53% the day before and the dollar, already in decline on Wednesday, fell against the euro.
On the value side, shares of Walmart, the number one hypermarket in the United States, fell by more than 6%. The distribution giant nevertheless posted quarterly turnover up 5.2% year-on-year to $160.8 billion, more than expected.
The group raised its annual earnings per share forecast, but not as much as expected by analysts who sanctioned the title.
Chinese online retail giant Alibaba also fell more than 7% on Wall Street. The group has announced that it is abandoning its plan to spin off its cloud business (remote computing).
Alibaba justifies this announcement by American restrictions on computer chips.
The department store chain Macy’s, on the other hand, was highly sought after (8.87%) after better-than-expected quarterly profits even though sales were down 7% year-on-year.
Telecommunications systems group Cisco plunged 11.17% after the group lowered its annual revenue and profit forecasts.