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New York (AFP) – The New York Stock Exchange opened slightly lower on Wednesday and held its breath before the communication from the American central bank (Fed), whose market will watch for the slightest signal of deceleration in its monetary tightening.
around 2:10 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones yielded 0.33%, the Nasdaq index dropped 0.59% and the broader S&P 500 index fell by 0.52%.
“I don’t remember such a quiet start to the day,” observed LBBW’s Karl Haeling. “Everyone is waiting for the Fed.”
The Federal Reserve is due to announce its monetary policy decision at 4:00 p.m. GMT. The president of the institution, Jerome Powell, will then give a press conference.
Operators estimate at 90% the probability of a further 0.75 percentage point increase in the key rate, which would be the fourth in a row, a sequence never seen in the modern era.
“Today’s decision should be aggressive,” Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com said in a note. “It’s what comes following that will count.”
Investors will therefore be looking for clues relating to the next meeting in mid-December to determine whether the Fed intends to downgrade and possibly opt for a hike of only half a point, as Wall Street hopes.
“I expect the Fed to be rather offensive” on Wednesday, explained Karl Haeling. “They don’t want us to ignite equity markets and, more generally, see financial conditions ease.”
Pending this communication, the indices were evolving within tight margins, as were bond rates.
Yields on 10-year and 2-year US government bonds were stable.
Only the 3-month rate, the most representative of market expectations regarding short-term monetary policy, continued to rise, to its highest level in more than 15 years, at 4.13%.
For Karl Haeling, the Fed should remain cautious, awaiting additional macroeconomic data that might eventually justify a change of gear.
Two CPI consumer price indices, for October and November, will thus be published by the December meeting, and should inform the American central bank on the trajectory of inflation in the United States.
Listed, Airbnb fell (-7.91% to 100.42 dollars), despite the publication of a turnover and a net profit above expectations. The platform predicts a slight slowdown in booking growth for the last quarter of the year, compared to the July-September period.
AMD was gaining height (+3.67% to 61.85 dollars), despite results below analysts’ forecasts and the lowering of its projections for the whole of the year. The semiconductor maker is seeing a slowdown in PC computer sales.
Match Group had the wind in its sails (+7.43% to 47.16 dollars) following reporting a turnover slightly above expectations, driven by the dating site Tinder, which compensated for the slowdown in other platforms like Meetic, OkCupid and Match.
The CVS Health pharmacy chain (+4.32% to 98.71 dollars) capitalized on its quarterly sales well above expectations, inflated by volume growth and price increases.
The market ignored the surprise loss of the group, attributable to exceptional elements.
They include in particular the provisioning of 5.2 billion dollars as part of an amicable agreement to settle the lawsuits relating to the prescription of opiates.
The media group Paramount Global (-9.44% to 17.36 dollars) suffered from a disappointment on its turnover and its profit, especially linked to traditional television (CBS and MTV in particular), which suffered from decline in revenue.
Estée Lauder was down (-6.92% to 192.46 dollars) following lowering its forecast for its entire shifted fiscal year 2023 (from July 2022 to June 2023).
The cosmetics group referred to a drop in demand from travelers (airports) in Asia and the decision of American retailers to reduce their stocks.
© 2022 AFP
