(News Bulletin 247) – The New York Stock Exchange fell slightly at the start of Thursday’s session, hit by some profit taking before a long weekend since tomorrow will be a public holiday in the United States.

At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones fell 0.4% to 33,355 points, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.3% to 11,955.5 points.

Unsurprisingly, the trading volume turned out to be much lower than the average for the last few days during this session, which ended a rather mixed week for the American markets.

Over the first four sessions of the week, the Dow has so far gained 1.5%, but the Nasdaq has lost 0.6% due to the darkening economic outlook in the United States.

However, the losses are limited by today’s publication of an indicator considered encouraging, showing that the labor market remains as solid as ever.

The number of weekly jobless claims fell by 18,000 during the week of March 27, thus settling at 228,000 against 246,000 the previous week.

A certain wait-and-see attitude prevails on the eve of the publication of monthly figures for job creation in the United States, which will help to draw up the health report of the world’s largest economy.

According to expectations, this report should show a slower pace of hiring in the United States in March, with 225,000 job creations expected against 311,000 new jobs in February.

At sector level, energy stocks (-1%) continue to suffer from the decline in oil prices, weakened by fears that the current economic slowdown will turn into a pure and simple recession.

On the NYMEX, a barrel of American light crude fell 0.5% but remained anchored above the $80 threshold.

Several high-tech heavyweights are suffering profit taking after their recent performance, such as Salesforce, which lost 2.2% on the Dow.

Costco shed more than 3% after reporting near flat sales in March.

Levi’s fell 15% after announcing better-than-expected quarterly results, boosted by its direct-to-consumer activities, but announced a drop in its margins due to the still marked impact of inflation.

The start of the day was equally calm in the foreign exchange market, where the dollar failed to confirm its recent recovery against the euro which is back near 1.0920.

Not much movement either on the debt front, with ten-year Treasuries continuing to fall towards 3.27%.

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