Wall Street hesitates at the opening of the last session of a robust year - France 24

New York (AFP)

Wall Street was moving close to balance soon after the opening of the last session in 2019 on Tuesday, the announcement of the signing on January 15 of a partial trade agreement between Washington and Beijing failing to frankly attract interest investors.

Around 2:45 p.m. GMT, the Wall Street flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 0.02% to 28,457.13 points.

The highly technological Nasdaq was gaining 0.07% to 8.951.99 points, and the broad S&P 500 index was gaining 0.03% to 3.222.31 points after both opened slightly lower.

The New York Stock Exchange ended in red on Monday, with investors choosing to cash in on their profits at the end of a year marked by strong index growth.

Despite the slump in the last two sessions, the Dow Jones continues to post an increase of around 22% since early 2019, the Nasdaq by 35% and the S&P 500 by 28%. If this trend is confirmed, it would be the best year for the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 since 2013.

But we must not forget that "2018 was difficult," said Nicholas Colas of DataTrek. The S&P 500, for example, considered by investors to be the most representative of large companies listed on Wall Street, had lost 6%.

Market players were then especially afraid of the rise in interest rates decided by the American central bank and the slowdown in the world economy fueled in particular by trade tensions and Brexit.

But the Federal Reserve changed its tune in 2019 and lowered its rates three times.

The upheavals of the trade war between Washington and Beijing have animated many sessions, but the constantly relaunched hope of a compromise has supported the rise in the indices.

The US president confirmed on Tuesday in a tweet just before the market opened that the partial deal reached by negotiators from the two countries in mid-December would be signed in the White House on January 15.

Corporate profits, meanwhile, fell less sharply than expected by analysts who were particularly worried about the apparent lack of confidence of the bosses and the weakness of their investments.

The fear of a recession in 2020 finally more or less dissipated in the fourth quarter, allowing the Wall Street indices to be particularly dynamic as the end of the year approaches.

© 2019 AFP