NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange closed lower on Tuesday ahead of last month’s U.S. inflation figures.

The Dow Jones index lost 0.35% or 154.10 points, to 44,247.83 points.

The broader S&P-500 lost 17.94 points (-0.30%) to 6,034.91 points.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.25% to 19,687.24 points.

The consumer price statistics for the month of November, published on Wednesday, constitute one of the main data that the Fed will have to take into account during its meeting on December 17 and 18. The consensus expects a slight increase in the CPI index, to 2.7% over one year compared to 2.6% in October.

The producer price statistics will follow on Thursday.

“The market is a little dormant ahead of the CPI and PPI this week. Markets want to see a number that won’t upset the Fed too much next week,” says strategist Mona Mahajan.

If the CPI index proves to be in line with expectations, investors will consider that nothing stands in the way of a quarter-point cut in Fed rates, she adds.

This reduction of 25 basis points is currently considered 86% probable by traders, according to the FedWatch barometer.

Pointing out that the S&P 500 has already climbed 27% since the start of 2024, Lindsey Bell, strategist at 248 Ventures, also believes that investors are “taking a breath”.

“The important thing is less what the Fed will do next week than what it will say about the future path of rates,” she notes.

After December, and awaiting the first measures from the future Donald Trump government, Fed officials suggested that the central bank’s monetary easing policy could slow down due to the resilience of the American economy.

Within the S&P 500 index, the communications sector index posted the strongest increase, supported by the action of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which climbed more than 5% after the announcement of a breakthrough in quantum chips.

The technology sub-index suffered more with the sharp drop (-6.7%) in Oracle shares, the group specializing in IT “cloud” having missed Wall Street’s expectations for its second quarter results.

In particular values, Walgreens Boots Alliance shares rose 17.7% after information according to which the pharmacy chain would be in discussions with a view to its acquisition by the private equity group Sycamore Partners.

For other information, please click on the following codes:

NYSE Nasdaq Synthetic Market Summary……………

25 highest volumes……………… Largest increases in %…………. Largest declines in %… ………… Guide to American stock indices…. Market statistics…………………… Reference borrowing at 10 years ………….. Guide to American sector indices… Guide to American equity markets…… Dow Jones Indices………… ………….. S&P indices…………….. Ex-dividend values…………. ………….. Forecasts for the Dow Jones and the S&P ..

(Sinéad Carew in New York, Purvi Agarwal and Shashwat Chauhan in Bangalore; Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the )

Copyright © 2024 Thomson Reuters