Wall Street fell early Friday, digesting a monthly report from the US government on jobs and unemployment and worrying again about Sino-US tensions.
Around 2:15 p.m. GMT, its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lost 0.28% to 27,309.69 points.
The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, yielded 0.10% to 11,097.50 points.
The S&P 500 extended index was down 0.11% at 3,345.44 points.
The New York Stock Exchange ended in the green Thursday, driven by the good health of the American internet giants and better than expected figures on new jobless claims: the Dow Jones finished at 27,386.98 points (+0 , 68%), and the Nasdaq at 11,108.07 points (+ 1.00%), crossing the 11,000 point mark for the first time.
The US economy created 1.8 million jobs in July, according to a monthly Labor Department report released Thursday morning.
This figure is well below June, when 4.8 million jobs were added, a record. The July slowdown is due in particular to the resurgence of the virus in a large part of the country.
The unemployment rate in the United States fell to 10.2% in July, down 0.9% from June. Analysts had expected a rate of 10.5%.
“The labor market is recovering from the shock caused by the coronavirus crisis, but still has a long way to go, as shown by the unemployment rate of 10.2% and the ratio of employment to the number of inhabitants at 55, 1%, well below 60.7% last year, “notes Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.
Market players were also concerned about the new escalation between Washington and Beijing.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed decrees prohibiting for 45 days any transaction “of persons under US jurisdiction” with the Chinese groups ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, and Tencent, owner of the WeChat platform.
Mr. Trump accuses, without proof, these applications of espionage on behalf of the Chinese government.
TikTok reacted on Friday by threatening to take legal action against the US decision, while Beijing denounced “political repression”.
– Uber falls –
In addition, negotiations seemed to drag on in Congress around new stimulus measures for the US economy.
Faced with the political impasse, Donald Trump threatened to impose a presidential decree to extend additional aid for the unemployed, lengthen the moratorium on evictions and authorize a reduction in the payroll tax.
Among the values of the day, Uber plunged 4.98%. The Californian company, hit hard by the impact of the pandemic, announced Thursday evening a net loss of $ 1.8 billion and revenue plummeting in the second quarter.
Goldman Sachs lost 0.42%. The American bank revised its quarterly accounts to include a charge of $ 2 billion following the agreement ending in July the lawsuits against the bank for its role in the vast 1MDB corruption scandal.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, dropped 0.03%. The group said Thursday it was buying mortgage services platform Ellie Mae for some $ 11 billion, including debt. ICE has already made several acquisitions in this sector in recent years.
On the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt rose to 0.5394% against 0.5362% Thursday night.
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