(New York) The New York Stock Exchange faltered on Tuesday, worried about signs of weakness in the Chinese economy, but also concerned for the financial stability of American banks.
The Dow Jones index fell 1.02% to 34,946.39 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ lost 1.14% to 13,631.05 points and the broader S
Canada’s main stock index fell nearly 400 points, or nearly 2%, on broad-based weakness.
The composite index S
In the currency market, the Canadian dollar traded at an average rate of 74.17 US cents, down from 74.29 US cents on Monday.
On the New York Commodity Exchange, crude oil returned US$1.52 to US$80.99 a barrel, while natural gas fell US$14 cents to US$2.66 a million. of BTUs.
The price of gold plunged US$8.80 to US$1935.20 an ounce and that of copper depreciated 6 cents US to US$3.67 a pound.
The VIX index, or so-called “fear index” because it measures price volatility, jumped 10% to 16 points.
US stocks “have been weighed down by growing concerns that China is in much worse shape than previously thought,” said Edward Moya, an analyst at Oanda.
China’s central bank cut its benchmark rate to 2.50% to boost lending as industrial production growth stalled and retail sales rose just 2.5% year-on-year in July, much less than expected.
In the United States, the good health of the consumer was a surprise with an increase in retail sales in July of 0.7% against 0.4% expected for the month and 3.2% year on year.
But this good news is double-edged. “A healthy consumer is supposed to lead to a soft landing for the economy, but too much consumer resilience will cause the Fed to hold rates higher for longer,” the Oanda analyst said.
Additionally, on the inflation front, import prices rose 0.4% in July, the biggest rise in more than a month, driven by rising energy costs.
Added to these macroeconomic elements were the comments of an analyst from the Fitch rating agency, which caused clear risk aversion among investors.
On the CNBC financial channel, Chris Wolfe of Fitch recalled that the rating agency had negatively revised its opinion on the general health of the financial sector at the end of June without this having been really noticed.
But if that overall rating were to be downgraded, “it would lead to a recalibration of financial barometers and likely result in downgrades” for individual banks, the analyst said.
On August 9, Moody’s had already downgraded the rating of a dozen regional banks.
“Downgrading the overall industry rating would in effect force Fitch to downgrade various banks, as banks’ ratings cannot be higher than the industry rating,” said José Torres, Economist for Interactive Brokers. .
Along with energy (-2.44%), the banking sector (-1.91%) led the pack in the stock decline on Wall Street.
JP Morgan lost 2.59%, Goldman Sachs dropped 1.67% and Bank of America fell 3.22%.
Regional banks, at the origin of the banking crisis last March, also lost altitude like PacWest Bancorp (-3.71%), Western Alliance (-4.12%) and Zions Bancorporation (-4, 49%).
Elsewhere, hardware giant Home Depot ended up 0.66% after announcing marginally better-than-expected second-quarter results that still reported sales down 2% and net profit down. by 9.9%.
The brand, which had lowered its annual forecasts in the previous quarter, confirmed them this time while noting that consumers were more reluctant to make large expenditures on purchases of durable goods or renovation projects.
A newcomer to Wall Street, Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast has stormed onto the NASDAQ.
VinFast merged with a SPAC, a listed company whose purpose is to make it easier for a company to go public.
Listed at the opening at $22, VinFast stock, whose ticker symbol is VFS, soared 68.45% to $37.
