PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened in mixed order on Wednesday, with investors generally being cautious ahead of the monetary policy announcements planned for the evening from the American Federal Reserve (Fed).

In early trading, the Dow Jones index gained 3.70 points, or 0.01%, to 43,453.60 points. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 2.13 points, or 0.04%, to 6,048.48 points.

The Nasdaq Composite took 18.14 points, or 0.09%, to 20,127.20 points.

The Fed will make its final monetary policy decision of the year at 7:00 p.m. GMT following a two-day meeting. A further rate cut of 25 basis points leaves little doubt in the eyes of investors.

However, there is total uncertainty regarding the continuation of the Fed’s monetary policy in view of the program considered inflationary by American President-elect Donald Trump, who will officially take office on January 20.

In this regard, the speech of Jerome Powell, the president of the Fed, will be particularly followed, as well as the economic projections of the central bank to determine whether we should expect a break from January in the current cycle. monetary easing and a slower pace of rate cuts in 2025.

“It’s more a question of what’s going to happen next and what’s going to be the rhetoric around 2025. Powell has really guided the markets in a pretty safe way and kind of kept them stable enough to continue the upward trajectory in 2022 , and we expect today to be similar,” predicts Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager at Globalt Investments.

“We expect two (rate) cuts in 2025, less than a few months ago,” he added.

On the bond market, the yield on ten-year Treasury bonds tightened slightly, by 1.6 basis points, to 4.4007%, while in foreign exchange, the dollar strengthened to nearly 107 points against a basket of reference currencies.

In stocks Nvidia rebounded by 2.60% after hitting a two-month low on Tuesday, while Tesla lost 3.41% after gaining more than 14% over the last three sessions.

Merck is up nearly 1% thanks to an agreement of up to two billion dollars with Hansoh Pharmaceuticals to develop and market the Chinese biotech’s anti-obesity drug.

General Mills dropped 4.14% after lowering its annual profit forecast due to increased promotions and lower prices to attract consumers.

Birkenstock (+9.37%) benefits from the group’s announcement of quarterly results above consensus.

(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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