New York (AFP)

Wall Street ended sharply lower on Wednesday, plagued by comments from the boss of the US central bank dismissing the idea of ​​a new automatic decline in interest rates by the end of the year after that occurred on Wednesday.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 1.23% to close at 26,864.27 points and the Nasdaq, with strong technological color, gave up 1.19% to finish at 8185.22 points.

The broad S & P 500 index lost 1.09% to 2,980.38 points.

The interest rate on US 10-year debt fell sharply and was moving towards 20.20 GMT to 2.011% against 2.058% the day before.

The decline in interest rates, which tends to delight stock market brokers as it allows households, businesses and investors to borrow less, was widely expected by markets, which initially reacted ad.

But the indices suddenly lost ground when US Central Bank President Jerome Powell dismissed the idea of ​​a "long cycle" of lower interest rates after Wednesday.

Mr. Powell, however, sowed some confusion by pointing out that further reductions were not excluded.

While Donald Trump continues to blame the Fed for not stimulating enough the world's largest economy, Powell also assured that the institution never took "politics into account."

"The market is worried in the end not to have as many rate cuts as it had anticipated," said Karl Haeling of LBBW.

Investors were in his eyes "perhaps a little too excited" by driving up the indices in anticipation of a sustained cycle of rate cuts. "Disappointed that the Fed is not announcing stronger support measures, they decided to reap their profits," he said.

Wall Street brokers were all the more inclined to withdraw their money from the table as "Jerome Powell did not sell very well why the Fed chose to lower rates," said Haeling.

Mr Powell explained that the bank was "insurance" about the future in the face of "uncertainties" in the world economy but also the "persistent weakness of inflation".

Yet the monetary committee's perception of the US and global environment has changed little from the last meeting six weeks ago. And Mr. Powell even described an economy "close to what we want".

© 2019 AFP