PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened on a cautious note on Monday as the Dow Jones and S&P trade at a nearly two-month high as investors await a series of results this week of companies and macroeconomic indicators that could help assess the path of interest rates and the economic situation.

In early trading, the Dow Jones index gained 45.81 points, or 0.14%, to 33,932.28 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.10% to 4,142.17 points.

The Nasdaq Composite took 0.14%, or 16.92 points, to 12,140.38.

The lackluster economic indicators on retail sales, industrial production and consumer sentiment in the United States, published last week, reinforced the prospect of a rate hike of only 25 basis points from the US Federal Reserve (Fed) in May.

According to the FedWatch barometer, the probability of an increase of this magnitude is now almost 90% against 78% last week.

In terms of the economy, the Fed’s Beige Book is expected on Wednesday, while on the microeconomic level, Netflix (-0.65%), Tesla (+ 1.41%) and IBM (+ 0.26%) , among others, are due to publish their quarterly accounts this week. Those of Goldman Sachs Group (-0.745%), Bank of America Corp (+0.01%) and Morgan Stanley (-0.12%) are scheduled for Tuesday.

Analysts are forecasting a 4.8% year-on-year decline in first-quarter S&P-500 company earnings, according to Refinitiv data. This, however, represents an improvement on their estimate last week of a 5.2% decline as quarterly earnings on Friday from Citigroup (-0.41%), JPMorgan Chase & Co (-0.23% ) and Wells Fargo & Co (+0.06%) came in above expectations.

The regional bank Schwab (-2.48%), she reported on Monday a profit in the first quarter better than expected, but decided to suspend the share buyback.

“The figures seen so far are encouraging and have allayed fears about bank profitability. But the situation will become more difficult in the future,” predicts Stuart Cole, chief macroeconomist at Equiti Capital.

“For regional banks, profitability will suffer as they will be forced to focus on securing adequate liquidity rather than lending, while large banks will face tougher times amid signs of slowing economic growth. economy,” he adds.

The banking sector index lost 0.51% and that of new technologies gained 0.44%.

In business news, Alphabet lost 3.61% in response to information that Samsung plans to replace Google’s internet search engine with Microsoft’s on its devices.

Merck & Co takes 0.52% after the announcement on Sunday of the acquisition of Prometheus Biosciences (+ 69.21%) for around 10.8 billion dollars (9.83 billion euros), which will allow it to strengthen in the field of immunology.

Dell Technologies declined by 0.70% and HP advanced by 4.17%, JPMorgan having lowered its recommendation on the first and raised that of the second.

(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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