by Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas
(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange ended in mixed order on Wednesday, with only the Dow Jones rising, as a string of disappointing economic data fueled concerns over a possible campaign-induced recession in the U.S. economy aggressive rate hike by the Federal Reserve (Fed) to fight inflation.
The Dow Jones index gained 0.24% to 33,482.72 points.
The broader S&P-500 lost 0.25% to 4,090.38 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell for its part by 1.07% to 11,996.86 points.
A U.S. jobs report released today shows private companies hired far fewer workers than expected in March, as data bolstered fears of a recession, while a survey released on Tuesday indicated a decline in job openings in February to a near two-year low.
Meanwhile, activity in the US services sector slowed more than expected last month, according to other data released on Wednesday. This comes on top of the decline in new industrial orders and weak manufacturing activity, highlighted by surveys released earlier this week.
Wall Street has made a turn in the face of signs of an economic slowdown, initially welcomed by investors because they were considered able to convince the Fed that it could ease its monetary policy, before worrying them now, causing a decline of the main indices.
“Perhaps we have made a transition from ‘bad news equals good news’ to ‘bad news is bad news’,” commented Jay Hatfield, director of InfraCap, in New York. “The fear of a recession is the dominant theme,” he said.
Seven of the eleven major sectors of the S&P-500 ended the session in the red, including industry.
The S&P-500 was weighed down in particular by Nvidia’s 2.1% decline after Alphabet subsidiary Google said the supercomputers it uses for its artificial intelligence models are faster and more powerful than similar components manufactured by Nvidia.
Other stocks down were tech giants including Tesla, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, which saw recent gains fade and weighed on the Nasdaq.
The Dow Jones was kept in the green thanks in particular to Johnson & Johnson, up 4.5% after advancing on an amicable settlement of complaints related to talc.
Among the other movements of values to note, the decline for a second session in a row, of 1.8%, of Caterpillar, considered as the spearhead of the industrial sector, due to fears of an economic trough.
FedEx rose 1.5% after announcing a restructuring aimed at reducing costs and improving efficiency.
( Jean Terzian)
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