© Reuters. WALL STREET ENDS LOWER
by Sinéad Carew
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York stock Exchange has once again folded Friday in the face of fears of a trade war triggered by Donald Trump, who have weakened throughout the week and were sentenced to suffer its largest decline in weekly from January 2016.
The Dow Jones has lost 424,69 points (-1,77%), 23.533,20, its lowest closing since November. It has dropped more than 1,000 points in two days and now has lost 11.6 per cent since its record close on January 26.
The Standard & Poor’s 500, wider and main reference of investors, has dropped 55,43 points, or 2.1%, 2.588,26, bringing its decline from its closing record of 26 January to 9.9%. The Nasdaq Composite, technology-intensive, for its part, finished in decrease of 2.43%, which is 174,011 points to 6.992,666.
On the week, the Dow fell 5,67%, the S&P-500 5.95%, and the Nasdaq 6,54%.
Wall Street has sketched out an attempt to rebound during the last session of the week, but the caution has finally prevailed in the aftermath of the announcement by the u.s. president of customs duties on imports from China, which has responded by unveiling a project of retaliatory measures.
“There’s a little bit of nervousness that comes from Washington at this time. Investors are more than happy to put away for the next two weeks to see how things develop on the front of the trade war,” said RJ Grant, head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in New York.
“It is prudent to withdraw some money off the table.”
DEBUT FANFARE FOR THE DROPBOX
Donald Trump has, however, turned off Friday, another potential source of concern is resolving to sign the financing act enacted by the u.s. Congress, which avoids the United States a “shutdown”, a paralysis of the federal administration.
This decision has benefitted the groups of aerospace and defense, which depend in large part on orders from the federal government.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) has whittled away to 0.44%, while Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, have all taken more than 2%.
All the major sectoral indices of the S&P finished in the red, even the energy (by 0.6%) despite the effect of oil prices. The largest decrease was suffered by the financial values (-2,99%) with the decline of bond yields.
Technology (-2,73%) once again weighed on the trend, with declines of 3.2% for Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), 2.9% for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), 2.3% for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and 3.3% for Facebook (NASDAQ:FB).
Despite the public interventions of Mark Zuckerberg, the social network is not able to extricate themselves from the scandal linked to the data breach of 50 million of its users, and it concluded the week on a plunge of nearly 14%.
Micron (NASDAQ:MU) Technology has added to the woes of the sector on Friday with a fall of 8% despite a quarterly earnings better than expected. The title of the manufacturer of semi-conductors has suffered from a lowering of recommendation from Citi, who is concerned about a decline in the price of its Nand chips to a quarter-over-quarter for the first time in two years.
In spite of this bleak context, Dropbox (NASDAQ:DBX) has successful debut with a bang on the Nasdaq national market for the largest ipo of a technology group on the american market since more than a year. The action of the specialist in the sharing and storage of data on the internet jumped by 35.6% to 28,48 dollars, while the price of its IPO had been set at $ 21.
RETREAT TO safe havens such AS THE YEN AND GOLD
Nike (NYSE:NKE) has registered with Boeing, one of only two increases in the Dow Jones with a gain of 0.3% after posting third-quarter results above expectations, thanks to strong demand in its international markets.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) gave up 3.1%, while GlaxoSmithKline has withdrawn from the race for the takeover of its assets to consumer health, including the u.s. laboratory hopes to be able to draw $ 20 billion (16.2 billion euros).
Approximately 8,11 billion shares were traded during the session on different u.s. markets, compared to an average of $ 7.3 billion over the 20 previous sessions.
In this climate of risk aversion, which has also affected the european stock markets, investors have retreated to safe-haven securities, such as bonds of the us Treasury, the yield on 10-year is back under 2,82% against most of 2.83% on Thursday evening.
The yen is also being sought. The japanese currency is back under 105 to the dollar for the first time since November of 2016. The greenback has largely ceded ground against a basket of currencies of reference (-0,4%) as against the euro, up to 1,2350 dollar.
Risk aversion and the decline of the dollar have fully benefited gold, which is closer to 1.350 dollars / ounce (+1,4%).
(With Sruthi Shankar; Bertrand Boucey for the French service)
