Wall Street: the Dow Jones closes at equilibrium, Nasdaq and S&P down, the market remains tense

The New York Stock Exchange ended in disarray on Wednesday, in a wait-and-see market, before major deadlines next week, and still bothered by the prospect of a possible recession to come.

The Dow Jones ended at breakeven, while the Nasdaq index dropped 0.51% and the broader S&P 500 index dropped 0.19%. The latter recorded its fifth consecutive withdrawal session on Wednesday, and the eighth in nine trading days.

“We tried to find an updraft, but the Nasdaq and the S&P fell back,” observed Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital. “We are approaching the point where the market will stabilize,” according to the analyst.

For Peter Cardillo, the New York place is freezing more and more ostensibly before what is shaping up to be the most important week of the year in terms of monetary policy, with the meeting of the American central bank (Fed), preceded by two inflation indicators, Friday and Monday.

“Investors are wondering how deep the recession will hit the US economy,” Edward Moya of Oanda said in a note.

The Canadian central bank (BOC) said on Wednesday it expects zero growth in the first half of 2023.

This smell of recession hanging over Wall Street has also invaded the bond market. The yield on 10-year US government bonds eased significantly, to 3.41%, from 3.53% the day before closing.

On Wednesday, the 2-year rate climbed to almost a percentage point above the 10-year rate (0.84 points), a first of such proportions since 1981. For many, this phenomenon testifies to the approach of a recession.

Another harbinger of an air pocket in the economy, the fall in oil prices, which continued on Wednesday and worried investors, according to Peter Cardillo.

The market now retains as its central hypothesis a key rate that would not go beyond 5%, whereas it saw, a few hours ago, this threshold crossing by June.

Among the few rare indicators of the day, the cost of labor rose by 2.4% in the third quarter in the United States, significantly less than the 3.5% expected by economists, an encouraging sign about a possible slowdown in the economy. inflation.

Listed, Tesla continued to decline (-3.21% to 174.04 dollars), affected by the economic context and the slowdown in Chinese demand.

The meltdown in the share price briefly forced Elon Musk, boss of the automaker, to cede his title of richest man in the world to Frenchman Bernard Arnault, CEO of the LVMH group, on Wednesday.

But Tesla recovered slightly at the end of the session and the entrepreneur ended the day at the top, with a fortune estimated at 185.4 billion dollars by the Forbes magazine site.

Apple also remained on the downward slope (-1.38% to $140.94). The president of the Japanese electronic components group Murata Manufacturing told the Bloomberg agency to expect a drop in production of the iPhone 14 due to a slowdown in demand.

The agri-food group Campbell Soup (+6.02% to 56.18 dollars), manufacturer of the famous canned soups, soared after the publication of a turnover and a profit well above expectations, thanks to price increases.

The online car sales platform Carvana fell (-42.92% to 3.83 dollars), after the publication of a note from Wedbush Securities, which mentioned a possible bankruptcy filing and lowered its price target to only one dollar per share.