The New York Stock Exchange closed lower on Thursday, tormented by tensions in the Middle East and awaiting the publication on Friday of an employment report which could influence the monetary policy of the American central bank.
The Dow Jones fell 0.44%, the Nasdaq index 0.04% and the broader S&P 500 index 0.17%.
“We fear an escalation, so we have a market (..) which is a little reluctant to the idea of expanding its activities until there is more clarity on the situation”, explained to the ‘AFP Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.
US President Joe Biden spoke on Thursday of ongoing “discussions” about possible Israeli strikes against Iranian oil infrastructure, after the missile attack launched Tuesday by Iran against Israeli territory.
The volatility index, nicknamed the “fear index”, which measures the nervousness of traders, was up 8%, and earlier reached its highest level since September 11.
The American market also kept an eye on a series of indicators published Thursday, including the ISM index of activity in services which climbed to 54.9% in September, compared to 51.5% in August. It is at its highest since February 2023.
New weekly applications for unemployment benefits in the United States, which were published on Thursday, are up slightly: 225,000 compared to 219,000 last week, probably inflated by technical unemployment measures at Boeing, according to Samuel Tombs, analyst at Pantheon MacroEconomics.
Wall Street’s attention is now focused on Friday’s publication of the government report on job creation in September in the United States, private and public sectors combined.
“This report should go a long way to shaping market expectations regarding the pace and scale of the US central bank’s (Fed) monetary policy,” O’Hare said.
The yield on 10-year US government bonds stood at 3.84% compared to 3.78% the day before at closing.
Alongside the increase in oil prices, the energy sector benefited from the tense geopolitical situation, with ExxonMobil (+0.87%), Chevron (+0.20%), ConocoPhillips (+1.87%) ) or even EOG Resources (+1.92%) all in the green.
The technology sector also managed to do well, driven in particular by the semiconductor giant Nvidia (+3.37%) following the comments of its CEO Jensen Huang concerning the interest aroused in the new “Blackwell” electronic chips. developed by the company specializing in AI.
After a very positive morning, the start-up EVgo, which manages a fast charging network for electric vehicles, continued to take off to close at +60.81%.
The company was awarded a US government conditional loan of $1.05 billion to expand its service in the territory.
