2024-01-03 22:08:47
Photo of a man walking near the New York Stock Exchange building
par David French
The New York Stock Exchange ended lower on Wednesday, with investors favoring profit-taking after a solid end to 2023, while the publication in the afternoon of the minutes of the last meeting of the Federal Reserve American (Fed) has not changed the trend.
The Dow Jones index lost 0.76%, or 284.85 points, to 37,430.19 points.
The broader S&P-500 lost 38.02 points, or 0.80%, to 4,704.81 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 173.73 points (1.18%) to 14,592.21 points.
Fed officials appear increasingly convinced that inflation has come under control, with less upside risks, and have expressed growing concern about the potential economic damage of “excessively restrictive” monetary policy. shows the minutes of the December meeting of the American central bank. These ‘minutes’, however, shed little light on the timetable for rate cuts that the Fed could follow, whose officials noted an “unusually high degree of uncertainty” for the economic horizon.
“The market wanted to know when and to what extent the Fed will lower rates, it did not have an answer,” commented Jason Betz, advisor at Ameriprise Financial, believing that today’s session could be a sign of a “small frustration linked to what is perceived as a lack of transparency from the Fed”.
For his part, Garrett Melson, portfolio manager at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions, said that most of the message about a rate cut in 2024 had already been delivered by Fed boss Jerome Powell and other officials. of the institution in recent weeks.
Traders expect the US central bank, whose next meeting will take place at the end of January, to make a first rate cut in March.
In this second session of the year, investors favored caution, like the day before, anxious to know when the Fed would make the announced shift in its monetary policy and how quickly the central bank could reduce its rates.
This caution was favored by the rise in the main Wall Street indices in December which had the effect of further increasing valuations. The S&P-500 approached its historic closing record at the end of December.
The rise in bond yields weighed on high-growth stocks this week, which fell again on Wednesday, such as Nvidia, Apple and Tesla. Data published today show that job creation in the United States declined in November for a third consecutive month, in a context of less tension on the labor market.
The rise in oil prices benefited energy, with one of the main sectors of the S&P-500 ending the session in the green. Financials declined, despite Citigroup’s renewed gains after an upwardly revised price target and a favorable report from Wells Fargo.
(French version Jean Terzian)
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