(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street posted a sharp drop at the end of the session, before the publication of the highly anticipated job creation figures. The Dow Jones lost 1.66% while the Nasdaq Composite was down 2.05%.
The market was oriented in pre-opening, towards a new session of decline in reaction to the rigorous remarks made in recent days by Jerome Powell, the President of the Federal Reserve.
The indices confirmed the upward movement despite the announcement of a larger than expected increase in jobless claims, which seems likely to encourage the Fed to ease off on its rate hikes.
Investors learned before the opening that these registrations had increased by 21,000 during the week of February 27, to settle at 211,000 while the consensus expected them at 195,000.
These figures relieved investors, who feared a new episode of tensions on the labor market which would have forced the Fed to take new measures to prevent an overheating of the economy.
However, the reaction remained subdued as the markets remained mainly focused on the official employment report, which will be released today by the Labor Department.
A wait-and-see attitude takes over and caution remains in order knowing that the previous delivery of the statistics was characterized by figures well above expectations.
Economists expect an average of 200,000 job creations in February after the 517,000 announced for the month of January.
In the bond segment, government bond yields are still not benefiting from the upward revision of rate expectations for the coming months, with a marginal decline to 3.96% for 10-year bonds.
On the foreign exchange market, the euro rose a little after its decline in recent days, to nearly 1.05705, the greenback no longer being boosted by Jerome Powell’s comments.
On the value side, GE climbed 5.3% after confirming its objectives for 2023 on the occasion of its investor day and being optimistic about the activity of its two divisions called to be split in early 2024.
GM lost 4.8% after launching a voluntary departure plan which will result in the recognition of heavy charges in the first half of the 2023 financial year.
Microsoft lost around 0.5% after announcing that Bing, now equipped with artificial intelligence features, had crossed the 100 million daily active users (DAU) mark.
Copyright (c) 2023 News Bulletin 247. All rights reserved.
I have over 8 years of experience working in the news industry. I have worked as a reporter, editor, and now managing editor at 247 News Agency. I am responsible for the day-to-day operations of the news website and overseeing all of the content that is published. I also write a column for the website, covering mostly market news.
