New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended in sharp decline on Monday in the wake of an unprecedented plunge in New York oil prices, whose contract for delivery next month ended in negative territory.

The Wall Street star index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 2.44% to 23,650.44 points.

The highly technological Nasdaq lost 1.03% to 8,560.73 points, and the S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, fell 1.79% to 2,823.16 points .

The New York market, which remained on two consecutive weekly increases, folded under the effect of the collapse of the prices of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in May, whose contract expires on Tuesday.

Reference to New York, it finished at -37.63 dollars, which means that investors are ready to pay to get rid of it, due to lack of storage and facing the anemia of demand for black gold caused by the coronavirus crisis.

"Exceptionally low oil prices are a sign of weak economic activity," said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities.

"This is a sign that we are in a period of deflation," added Mr. Cardillo, recalling the series of recent catastrophic indicators for the American economy, in particular the explosion in the number of jobless claims.

Unsurprisingly, the oil majors are among the stocks that suffered the most on the stock market on Monday: Occidental fell by 7.6%, Chevron by 4.1% and Exxon Mobil by 4.7%.

But the energy sector is far from being the only one to suffer the shock, several big names on the New York coast like the aircraft manufacturer Boeing (-6.8%) or the bank JPMorgan Chase (-3.7%) also having very strongly folded.

In addition, investors seemed to get impatient in the absence of a compromise between the White House and Congress on a second wave of loans to small and medium-sized American businesses devastated by the coronavirus crisis.

Despite encouraging statements from Democratic and Republican officials last weekend to unlock new funds for SMEs, the initial $ 349 billion having already been allocated, no vote was scheduled for Monday.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the US debt fell to 0.6148%, compared to 0.6417% at the last closing.

© 2020 AFP