New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended without direction Monday at the end of a jagged session, where several large technology stocks have fallen sharply after significant gains in recent weeks.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished close to equilibrium, gaining 0.04% to 26,085.80 points.

The Nasdaq, which remained on three consecutive records, fell 2.13% to 10,390.84 points.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.94% to 3,155.22 points. During the session, the widened Wall Street index returned to its level at the start of the year before subsiding.

According to Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com, the downturn in the market is not surprising, since it has been evolving at a particularly high level for several weeks.

The clues in particular dived from the nose after the decision of the governor of California to reimpose restrictions faced with the resurgence of cases of coronavirus in the state.

Gavin Newsom has therefore decreed the closure of indoor dining rooms, cinemas and a series of shops and services (hairdressers, sports halls, places of worship, etc.) in around thirty counties at risk, including that of Los Angeles.

These announcements provided "the perfect excuse for an overvalued market to breathe a little, especially on the side of technology stocks", notes Mr. O'Hare.

Google (-3.00%), Apple (-0.46%), Facebook (-2.28%), Microsoft (-3.09%) and Alphabet (-1.74%), the parent company of Google , all ended up in red.

The top-of-the-range electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla had a crazy ride, jumping 14% at the start of the session before collapsing and losing 3.08% at the close, obviously paying the price for speculative movements.

The place in New York had started to rise, driven by hopes of progress on the medical front.

The American laboratories Pfizer (+ 4.08%) and German BioNTech (+ 10.55%) have indeed announced that they intend to start the next phase of their clinical trials this month on 30,000 patients. The companies hope to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2020 and more than 1.2 billion by the end of 2021.

In addition, market players will have their eyes turned this week to the quarterly results of the major American banks. JPMorgan Chase (+ 1.43%), Citigroup (-0.85%) and Wells Fargo (-0.24%) will release their figures on Tuesday.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the US debt stood at 0.6201% around 20.25 GMT, down from Friday evening (0.6447%).

© 2020 AFP