PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened mixed on Friday after the publication of a mixed employment report in the United States, which showed a rise in the unemployment rate and a slowdown in wage growth, but an acceleration in job creation.
In early trading, the Dow Jones index lost 3.07 points, or 0.01%, to 38,788.28 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.17% to 5,166.27 points.
The Nasdaq Composite takes 0.31%, or 51.099 points, to 16,324.474.
An hour before the opening of Wall Street, the US Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate in the United States had risen to 3.9% in February compared to 3.7% the previous month, while the increase in wages average hourly rate slowed to 0.1% over one month and 4.3% over one year.
The American economy, however, showed an unexpected acceleration in job creation in February to 275,000, even if the figure for January was significantly revised downwards, to 229,000 against 353,000 initially estimated.
“The key element here is wage growth (more) than anything else, which has proven to be very modest and well below expectations,” emphasizes Paul Nolte, wealth advisor at Murphy & Sylvest.
“This fuels the inflation narrative more than strong jobs data,” he added.
The employment report does not seem to call into question the expectations of rate cuts developed by the markets.
Traders now rate the likelihood of a U.S. Federal Reserve rate cut in June at 81.1%, up from 74.4% before the jobs report was released, according to CME Group’s FedWatch barometer. .
On the bond market, the yield on ten-year Treasuries fell around two basis points, to 4.0943%.
Technology stocks like Nvidia gained 2.99%.
On the corporate publications side, Broadcom fell by 3.34% after an annual turnover forecast considered disappointing, while Marvell Technology lost 6.89% following the publication of a quarterly turnover lower than the market expectations.
Gap jumped 4.78% after the ready-to-wear group published fourth-quarter results above expectations.
Costco Wholesale fell 5.63% after publishing fourth-quarter sales below forecasts.
(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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