(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street ended at half mast on Tuesday, still concerned about tensions on bond yields, which fueled the movement of profit taking at work since the beginning of the past month.
At the end of the session, the Dow Jones fell 0.7% to 32,657 points, the S&P500 lost 0.3% to 3,970 points and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.1% to 11,456 points.
“If it ended the session unchanged at 3.92%, the benchmark rate for 10-year US government bonds reached 3.983% during the day, its highest level since November,” said Wells Fargo.
The bond market reflected fears surrounding the persistence of inflationary pressures, which lead investors to anticipate further rate hikes from the Federal Reserve in the coming months.
The macroeconomic context is not particularly favorable, however, since the US consumer confidence index, calculated by the Conference Board, fell to 102.9 in February against 106 previously, when it was expected to rise slightly.
‘The decline in household confidence was particularly marked among households made up of people aged 35 to 54 and with an annual salary of more than 35,000 dollars’, pointed out the Conference Board.
On the stocks front, Target gained 1% after the low-cost retailer beat expectations for the first time in a year, but equipment retailer AutoZone’s quarterly release (-3.3%) received a much less warm welcome.
Merck dropped 2.9%, the pharmaceutical company having announced the cessation of two phase III trials concerning its Keytruda against prostate and bronchial cancers.
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