Opening
Wall Street goes down, economic fears sink
published on 12/10/2020
PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened lower on Thursday as rising jobless listings illustrated the labor market consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of further fiscal stimulus.
A few minutes after the opening, the Dow Jones lost 95.28 points, or 0.32%, 29,973.53 points and the Standard & Poor’s 500, larger, fell 0.28% 3,662.36 points.
The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.8% to 12,240.15 points the opening.
Released an hour before the opening, the stronger than expected rise in weekly jobless claims has rekindled fears for the economy. They increased by 853,000 against 716,000 the previous week and 725,000 for the consensus.
The Chamber of Representatives approved a text extending federal funding for one week in order to avoid a “shutdown” of the administration and to offer members of Congress more time to agree in particular on a stimulus plan including negotiations have been deadlocked for months.
“Any good news about the stimulus could clip the rest and get us back to focusing on the potential of vaccines and the economic recovery. But for now, we are being held hostage by the Washington blockade,” said Art Hogan, head of strategy at National Securities.
Wall Street indexes have won records in recent weeks thanks to progress made by pharmaceutical companies in the development of vaccines.
Pfizer (+ 0.39%) and BioNTech (+ 3.09%) are on the rise as a group of independent experts will meet during the day to deliver an advisory opinion on their emergency authorization request. vaccine, which could influence the final decision of the United States Drug Agency (FDA).
The trend is new, slowed down by the decline of major technology stocks such as Alphabet (-1.29%) or Facebook (-1.39%).
(Laetitia Volga, spoken by Patrick Vignal)
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