Wall Street ends directionless ahead of major corporate results

The New York Stock Exchange ended a hesitant session on Monday without direction, on the eve of important quarterly results that could set the tone for the market.

According to final results, the Dow Jones index gained 0.28% to 31,990.04 points and the S&P 500 gained 0.13% to 3,966.84 points. The technology-dominated Nasdaq dropped 0.43% to 11,782.67 points.

“The market lost its early trading gains and it was mainly the Nasdaq that weighed on the market as a whole,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital. “The reason for that is that investors are getting cautious ahead of big tech results,” he added.

While the week is one of the busiest in terms of company results, the figures for megacaps Alphabet (Google, +0.14%) and Microsoft (-0.59%) are expected on Tuesday after the close.

In the wake of these expectations, all the big names in the sector ended in the red, from Facebook (Meta, -1.55%) to Amazon (-1.05%) via Twitter (-1.48%) and Netflix (-0.88%).

Shares of semiconductor manufacturers also ended in negative territory such as Nvidia (-1.70%) or AMD (-0.64%), pending a US Senate vote for support of 50 billion. dollars to the industry, which is suffering from difficulties in the supply chain.

In total, some 175 companies in the S&P 500 will publish their quarterly accounts this week “among the most important in the world”, enough to make investors anxious, said Wells Fargo analysts.

– The Fed in the sights –

In addition to corporate earnings, markets will have their eyes on the Federal Reserve (Fed) monetary meeting which begins on Tuesday. The US central bank is expected to announce a further 0.75 percentage point hike on Wednesday in a bid to curb inflation, according to most operators.

“This 75 basis point increase is already taken into account by the markets”, noted Peter Cardillo, but according to him, “it is the results of companies which will set the tone for the Stock Exchange for the rest of the summer” .

Investors will also watch for crucial indicators of the US economy, starting with the first estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter expected Thursday.

The world’s largest economy was already in contraction in the 1st quarter (-1.6%). Technically, an economy is considered in recession after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

US President Joe Biden nevertheless assured Monday evening that the country would not experience a recession.

His Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, also certified on Sunday that while the US economy was slowing, the economic data did not herald a recession. “A recession is a general contraction that affects many sectors of the economy. We just don’t have that,” said the Minister of Economy and Finance.

Inflation for June measured by the PCE index, the Fed’s favorite barometer, is also expected on Friday.

On the market, shares in the oil sector rebounded strongly in the wake of an increase in oil prices linked to the announcement by the Russian gas company Gazprom that it was going to drastically reduce gas deliveries to Europe from of Wednesday.

Chevron took 2.97%, ExxonMobil 3.32% and ConocoPhillips 4.43%.

Walmart, the number of discount distribution, fell almost 8% after the close (-0.14% to 132.02 dollars), following its announcement of a drop in its profit forecast while inflation changes the habits of its customers.

The title of the manufacturer of Weber barbecues descended into hell (-12.65% to 6.56 dollars), after posting a loss in the 2nd quarter and forecasting a drop in sales for the next, while its CEO leaves the group .