(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street is expected to decline on Thursday in the first exchanges under the influence of indicators deemed not very reassuring in the perspective of a continuation of the monetary tightening currently operated by the Fed.

Half an hour before the opening, futures contracts on the main New York indices lost between 0.8% and 1.4%, announcing a start to the session in the red.

The publication of several indicators confirming the resilience of the US economy has fueled investors’ concerns about the evolution of the Federal Reserve’s policy.

Jobless claims fell by just 1,000 in the past week, according to the Labor Department, a figure that reflects a still tight labor market.

Another statistic released before the opening is that of producer prices, which recorded a stronger-than-expected rise last month due to a sharp rebound in energy costs.

This latest data suggests that inflation is still struggling to come down, which could jeopardize a break – or ‘pivot’ – in the Fed’s interest rate hike.

On the real estate front, the Commerce Department reported a 4.5% decline in housing starts in January while U.S. housing permits – believed to foreshadow future housing starts – have remained stable.

The only bad figure of the day, the index measuring the current activity of the Philadelphia Fed (‘Philly Fed’) fell from -8.9 last month to -24.3 in February.

Signs of strength in the US economy, as well as the very gradual decline in inflation, have recently led to a temporization phase in New York by reinforcing the scenario of a continuation of the Fed’s policy tightening.

On Wednesday, Wall Street had thus ended on a measured rise, the Dow Jones index having ended the session on a symbolic gain of 0.1% and the Nasdaq on a small increase of 0.3%.

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