PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange fell on Friday at the start of the session, investors fearing that the Federal Reserve opted for caution by maintaining a restrictive monetary policy throughout the year.
In early trading, the Dow Jones index lost 79.34 points, or 0.24%, to 33,617.51 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.57% to 4,066.96 points.
The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.72%, or 85.378 points, to 11,770.456.
The latest statistics have highlighted stubborn inflation in the United States, a still tight job market and solid consumer spending, all good economic factors that could allow the Fed to continue raising its rates.
Goldman Sachs now expects the central bank to raise interest rates three more times this year (in March, May and June), by a quarter of a percentage point each time.
In the bond market, yields on two- and ten-year Treasury bills hit their highest level in three months, at 4.718% and 3.929% respectively.
On the stock market, the pharmaceutical group Moderna lost 4.94%, its experimental vaccine with messenger RNA against the flu not having shown in a study that it was at least as effective as an existing vaccine against a strain of the disease.
(Laetitia Volga, editing by Tangi Salaün)
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