(New York) The New York Stock Exchange, which had started in the green, as it had since the start of the week, turned red on Thursday after news of inflation in the United States which remained stubborn in September.
The Dow Jones index lost 0.33%, the technology-dominated NASDAQ lost 0.07% and the S
Price growth remained at 3.7% year-on-year, according to the CPI index published by the Labor Department. This rate disappointed analysts, who expected a slight slowdown, to 3.6% year-on-year, according to the MarketWatch consensus.
Over just one month, however, inflation slowed for the first time since May, to 0.4% – more than expected nonetheless – compared to 0.6% in August.
This persistent inflation could push the American central bank (Fed) to further raise its main key rate by the end of the year, but not by much, and the peak seems very close, if not already reached.
“This will reinforce the Fed’s hawkish stance and keep it open to further rate tightening,” commented Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist for Nationwide.
However, for the monetary meeting on November 1, the investor consensus leans towards a status quo of the Fed’s key rates for the second time in a row.
The question for the American central bank (Fed) is now no longer how high rates will rise, now at or near their peak, but how long to maintain them at this level, the minutes of the last meeting revealed published Wednesday.
Bond rates, which had been falling in recent days, supporting the stock market, stopped their decline on Wednesday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.64% from 4.55%.
The dollar recovered, climbing 0.62% to 1.0555 euros per dollar.
In the American labor market, new claims for unemployment benefits for last week remained below 210,000.
In the stock market, automaker Ford was down 2.50% around 9:45 a.m. ET as the United Auto Workers union extended its strike to the unit that makes SUVs and pickup trucks in the Kentucky. General Motors also dropped 1.99%.
Pepsico (-1.63%) lost the ground gained at the start of the week after revising its results forecasts for 2023 upwards.
Microsoft only lost 0.34% to $331 while the American tax authorities are demanding almost $29 billion in back taxes. The IT giant plans to contest this claim from the tax authorities by appealing to the IRS.
The oil giant ExxonMobil, which had been shunned on Wednesday during the announcement of the takeover of the producer Pioneer for 60 billion dollars, was regaining color (0.82%).
Target supermarkets gained 1.80% after being rated highly by analysts at Bank of America. The chain of pharmacies and drugstores Walgreens oscillated from red to green after announcing weaker than expected fourth quarter results.
Sandals from the German manufacturer Birkenstock, introduced on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday without much success (-12%), fell by another 2.99%.
The airline Delta lost 0.26% before the publication of its quarterly results just after the closing bell on the stock market.
