The New York Stock Exchange ended on the wire in the green on Friday an undecided session, made volatile by expiries of options and gloomy economic indicators.
The Dow Jones index advanced 0.59% to 33,745.69 points, the tech-dominated Nasdaq gleaned 0.01% to 11,146.06 points and the broader S&P 500 index 0.48% to 3,695, 34 points, according to final results.
For Edward Moya of Oanda, “US equities behaved as if they were already dormant for Thanksgiving week and market moves were uninspired as little new was learned.”
Next week will be shortened for the financial markets in the United States with the traditional Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
A technical factor weighed on the lack of trend, with the expiration of many options at the end of the day, also underlined Peter Cardillo, of Spartan Capital.
Over the week, the Nasdaq was down once more (-1.5%) as was the S&P 500 which dropped almost 1%.
“We also had the release of indicators that were negative, such as the leading economic indicator and sales of existing homes. All of this points to recession,” added the Spartan Capital analyst.
Home resales in the United States fell sharply in October, falling for the ninth month in a row, depressed by the rise in interest rates on mortgages.
Nine consecutive months of decline is the longest decline in sales of existing homes recorded by the National Federation of American Realtors (NAR).
Last month, 4.43 million houses and apartments changed hands at an annualized rate, 5.9% less than in September, and 28.4% less than a year ago at the same time. , the Federation announced on Friday.
As for the advanced economic index designed by the Conference Board, it fell by 0.8% in October, more than expected, following an initial decline of 0.5% in September and already seven consecutive declines, seeming to diagnose that the US economy is already in recession.
“With inflation still high, the Fed rapidly tightening monetary policy and weaker corporate accounts, the risks of a recession in 2023 are increasing,” said Gurleen Chadha of Oxford Economics.
But for Peter Cardillo, the stock market indices “did not perform so badly given this environment”.
Especially since investors managed to ignore Friday, the remarks made more rate by several officials of the Central Bank (Fed), suggesting that the rate hikes were far from over.
The president of the Fed of Saint Louis (Missouri) suggested on Thursday “that the rates on the federal funds might have to go up to between 5% and 7%”, whereas they are between 3.75% and 4% following a series of already severe monetary tightenings, recalled analysts at Wells Fargo.
Several retailers announced better than expected results such as the clothing brands GAP (+7.40%), Ross Stores (+9.86%) or Foot Locker (+8.64%).
Almost all S&P sectors except energy (-0.90%) and communication services (-0.35%) closed in the green.
That reassured investors as lackluster results from retail chain Target earlier in the week dampened prospects for consumer sentiment and dampened market sentiment, noted Briefing.com’s Patrick O’Hare.
Tesla dropped 1.63% as its leader Elon Musk continued the restructuring of Twitter which suffered a cascade of staff departures.
Electric vehicle manufacturers Rivian (-5.39%) and Lucid (-1.65%) also fell into negative territory.
On the bond market, yields on Treasury bills resumed their upward path to “3.82% once morest 3.76% around 9:20 p.m. GMT.
Nasdaq