New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange was hesitant about opening Wednesday, being cautious before the end of a meeting of the American central bank (Fed).

Around 1:45 pm GMT, its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, yielded 0.44% to 27,151.37 points.

The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, took 0.56% to 10,009.09 points.

The S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, fell 0.12% to 3,203.26 points.

Wall Street had already finished without direction Tuesday, the Dow Jones (-1.09%) and the S&P 500 (-0.78%) pausing after a strong progression while the Nasdaq (+ 0.29%) had benefited the surge of a few big names in tech like Apple to climb to a new record.

The indices have in fact advanced a lot since the end of March, with investors taking advantage of the thousands of billions of dollars injected by the Fed and the American government into financial circuits to support the economy and betting on the gradual recovery of the economy.

Numerous indicators have shown the severe impact of the measures imposed to stem the Covid-19 pandemic on economic activity, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development still Wednesday estimated that the world economy should experience a recession of at least minus 6% this year.

But the US employment report released on Friday showed a surprise drop in the unemployment rate, comforting market participants that growth could pick up faster than expected in the United States.

In view of the strong rise in the indices in recent weeks, however, they are looking for elements that can continue to fuel this increase and will closely monitor in this regard the information released following the meeting of the Fed's current monetary policy committee. session.

"We do not expect substantial changes in monetary policy, in terms of interest rates or asset buybacks," said analysts at Daiwa Capital Markets. "But investors will try to assess the Fed's position on the economic situation and potential next steps in the new economic forecasts and at the press conference by Jerome Powell", the president of the institution, add- they.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the US debt fell to 0.7873% against 0.8253% on Tuesday at the close.

© 2020 AFP