The New York Stock Exchange hesitated on the direction to follow Thursday shortly after an opening in the red, with worse than expected figures on US unemployment.
Around 1:50 p.m. GMT, its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 0.41% to 27,578.81 points.
The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, took 0.19% to 11,167.51 points after starting lower.
The S&P 500 extended index lost 0.22% to 3,367.42 points.
Wall Street ended lower on Wednesday, catching its breath the day after new records while the American Central Bank (Fed) has, in a document, been particularly cautious about the health of the United States economy: the Dow Jones was down 0.56% and the Nasdaq 0.57%.
The Fed notably estimated that “the current health crisis will weigh heavily in the short term on economic activity, employment and inflation in the short term”.
“After falling back at the end of the day Wednesday in the face of the cautious tone of the minutes of the Fed’s monetary policy meeting, the stock market continues (Thursday) on the same trend,” said analysts at Charles Schwab.
They also digest the announcement by the Department of Labor of a rebound in weekly jobless claims last week in the United States, which have risen above the million mark.
A total of 14.8 million people were receiving unemployment benefit during the week of August 2-8, with the data released one week later.
These statistics reflect the persistence of high unemployment in the United States even as the unemployed face since the beginning of August the loss of a crucial aid of 600 dollars per week, which had been adopted at the end of March by the Trump administration and Congress as part of the massive economic stimulus package.
The White House and the elected Democrats in Congress agree to extend it, but cannot agree on the amount.
The markets are also keeping an eye on the evolution of the pandemic, which seems to be regaining strength in certain regions of the world with, for example, an increase in cases in Germany and France.
They are also monitoring any developments on the trade front as the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said Thursday that Beijing and Washington had decided to call each other “shortly”, without however specifying what would be the nature or the agenda of this conversation. .
On the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt fell sharply to 0.6396% against 0.6801% Wednesday night.
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