Wall Street opens in dispersed order, the results please, the Fed worries

The New York Stock Exchange opened in scattered order on Friday, between good corporate results and concerns about the trajectory of the American Central Bank (Fed) after a good surprise on American employment.

Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones fell by 0.25%, the Nasdaq index, with a strong technological coloring, took 0.59%, and the broader S&P 500 index, 0.10%.

At the very beginning of the morning, the futures contracts on the indices foreshadowed a rising opening, supported by the good results of Amazon and the day after a session turned upside down by the fall of Meta (Facebook).

But the publication of the monthly employment report cut the New York market in its tracks, before a contrasting opening.

The US economy created 467,000 jobs in January, more than triple what economists predicted (150,000).

In addition, the December figure was subject to a major revision, from 199,000 creations to 510,000.

The labor market participation rate (proportion of individuals aged 16 and over who have or are looking for a job), a closely followed indicator, has risen significantly, to 62.2% (against 61.9% in December).

“This is good news for the economy,” commented Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities. “There is no evidence of an impact of the variant (Omicron) on the job market.”

“Unfortunately for the market, (the report) should reinforce fears that the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise rates faster and harder” than expected, said Cliff Hodge, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth.

“Too bad for Amazon’s good results,” said John Lynch, chief investment officer at Comerica Wealth Management.

The jobs report “puts the 50 basis points back on the table for the next Fed meeting in March,” he said.

After the Fed’s statements last week, a substantial proportion of investors had warned of a possible half-point (50 basis points) hike in the key rate in March, which would be a first since 2000.

But since the beginning of the week, the prospect had seemed to move away, before returning to people’s minds on Friday.

The bond market reacted violently. The benchmark yield on 10-year US government bonds rose to 1.91% for the first time in 25 months.

On the stock market, witnessing an unprecedented capitalization meltdown on Thursday (more than 230 billion dollars), Meta (Facebook) remained down on Friday (-1.50% to 234.20 dollars).

Manhandled Thursday, Amazon soared in the first trade (+ 10.20% to 3,060.18 dollars), hailed for its better than expected results.

Wall Street did not hold it against the compression of its margins, linked to supply difficulties and the increase in labor costs.

In the process of being acquired by Microsoft, the American video game publisher Activision Blizzard (+0.28% to 79.18 dollars) published Thursday results significantly below expectations, for lack of having been able to capitalize sufficiently on trends. current events, in particular the explosion of games on smartphones.

Cut off Thursday (-23.60%), Snap was in orbit (+44.43% to 35.38 dollars), the day after the publication of its first quarter profit.

The parent company of Snapchat reported continued strong growth in its users, which contrasted with the slowdown of Meta (Facebook).

In difficulty in the third quarter after the update of the operating system of the Apple iPhone (iOS), which limits the collection of personal data, Snap indicated Thursday that its advertising turnover had suffered less at the end of 2021 .

He brought with him other social networks, Twitter (+2.86%) or Pinterest (+6.77%), which had also lost a lot of ground on Thursday.

Despite sales up more than 32% in the fourth quarter, Ford was punished for its earnings below expectations (-10.21% to 17.86 dollars).