(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street should start without much change on Wednesday morning, the lackluster performance of Goldman Sachs over the past quarter having dampened the recent optimism of investors.

Half an hour before the opening, the ‘future’ contract on the Dow Jones index fell slightly by 0.1%, while that on the Nasdaq 100 nibbled 0.1%, suggesting a hesitant opening.

If the American banks had so far delivered very good results, the publication – this morning – of the quarterly accounts of Goldman Sachs gave rise to an undeniable disappointment.

The title of the business and investment bank is expected to fall by 1.5% after the announcement of a drop of almost 60% in its profit in the second quarter.

A key indicator of its financial performance – the return on equity (ROE) which measures the return on funds invested by shareholders – has thus fallen to 4%.

The oil services group Halliburton lost 2% in pre-market quotations following the publication of a quarterly net profit marked by losses linked to transactions in Argentina.

Other S&P stocks to be released on Wednesday also include IBM, Netflix and Tesla, whose results are expected after the close.

On the economic front, the Commerce Department reported an 8% drop in housing starts in June, a level overall below economists’ expectations.

For their part, building permits for American housing – supposed to prefigure future housing starts – fell by 3.7%, a level also well below the market consensus.

Despite this aspect, the indicator had little impact on the markets, the dollar remaining close to the 1.1220 mark against the euro, while the yield on ten-year Treasuries continued to fall towards 3.75%.

In Europe, the equity markets were down slightly on Wednesday at the start of the afternoon, with the Euro STOXX 50 yielding 0.1% and the DAX nearly 0.2%.

On the oil market, oil prices recovered nearly 1%.

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