by Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas

(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange ended lower on Tuesday as rising oil prices heightened concerns about lingering inflationary pressures ahead of this week’s release of key price data, while Oracle weighed in after reporting gloomy forecasts.

The Dow Jones index lost 0.05% to 34,645.99 points.

The broader S&P-500 lost 0.57% to 4,461.91 points.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.04% to 13,773.62 points.

Up more than 1%, oil prices confirmed their recent trend and fueled the hypothesis that the persistence of inflation is pushing the American Federal Reserve (Fed) to maintain high interest rates for longer than expected , indicators that highlighted the resilience of the economy.

“People are a little worried about the rather aggressive rise in energy prices in recent weeks, and that gives rise to some concerns for the horizon until November”, a month in which some investors anticipate that the Fed will raise interest rates again, commented Thomas Hayes, president of Great Hill Capital LLC.

Before that, the US central bank will meet next week. Almost all traders expect the Fed to decide to pause its monetary tightening cycle.

Investors are waiting for the publication of consumer prices in the United States on Wednesday and then, on Thursday, of producer prices, to find clues on the future decisions of the Federal Reserve.

“Anything we have between now and the November (Fed) meeting is going to be important, especially the inflation-related ones,” said Art Hogan, market strategist at B Riley Wealth, emphasizing the importance of consumer price data.

Another expected decision is that of the European Central Bank (ECB), which should announce on Thursday that it is maintaining its interest rates at their current level, after nine consecutive increases.

Oracle fell more than 13% on Tuesday, reaching its lowest level since June, after announcing a lower-than-expected revenue target for the current quarter.

This contributed to the decline of other cloud computing giants, Amazon and Microsoft, both down more than 1%, also affected by the rise in bond yields.

Apple fell 1.8% after unveiling during the day its new range of iPhones, whose base price will be lower than that of the previous one, in a context of global sales trough.

Eight of the eleven major sectors of the S&P-500 fell, led by information technology, down 1.75%. Communication services lost 1.06%. In the green sector, in particular, energy, which gained 2.31%.

( Jean Terzian)

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