(News Bulletin 247) – The New York Stock Exchange fell again on Tuesday morning in a market struggling with an avalanche of quarterly results still very diversely received by investors.
At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones consolidated by 0.2% to 33,801.5 points, after having aligned two sessions in the green, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.8% to 11,939.1 points.
As has been the case since the beginning of the earnings season, players seem to be struggling to define a clear trend in the rain of corporate results that is beating down on the markets.
Among the groups that published their accounts this morning, the courier group UPS – often considered a barometer of economic activity – fell 9% after accounts deemed disappointing.
Less heavily sanctioned, Halliburton fell 4% despite better-than-expected performance, as did Dow, which fell 3.7% despite results above expectations.
Many investors are obviously choosing to take advantage of the solid results publications to take the profits made since the beginning of the year.
“We advise to take advantage of any strength in prices following the first quarter publications to lighten up”, thus recommend the analysts of JPMorgan in a note of strategy.
A few rare announcements are well received, such as those of PepsiCo (+2.5%), but the real test will take place this evening with the quarterly results of Alphabet and Microsoft.
In terms of statistics, the consumer confidence index calculated by the Conference Board fell to 101.3 in April, against 104 in March, further reinforcing the scenario of a coming recession.
Sales of new homes jumped 9.6% in March to reach an annualized and seasonally adjusted volume of 683,000, well above market consensus.
On the energy side, oil prices are correcting with US light crude now falling back below the $77 threshold due to concerns surrounding the health of the economy.
In the bond compartment, the yield on US Treasury bonds eased towards 3.40%, with investors abandoning equities in favor of more defensive options.
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