New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange retreated to the opening Thursday, pausing in the face of a contrasting salvo of American indicators and corporate results.

Around 1:45 p.m. GMT, its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 0.57% to 26,717.10 points, showing a decline after four sessions of increase.

The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, lost 1.08% to 10,436.75 points.

The broad S&P 500 index dropped 0.75% to 3,202.36 points.

Wall Street had finished in the green Wednesday, enthused by the quarterly results of the bank Goldman Sachs and reassured by an announcement of the biotech Moderna on the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus: the Dow Jones had gained 0.85% and the Nasdaq took 0.59%.

Statistics on the health of the US economy released on Thursday were mixed.

The number of new weekly unemployed workers in the United States remained almost stable with 1.3 million people who registered between July 5 and 11. And according to data published with a lag of one week, the total number of beneficiaries of an allowance was also down slightly: 17.3 million Americans were affected by unemployment during the week ended July 4.

Retail sales in the United States, for their part, increased by 7.5% in the United States in June, increasing for the second month in a row after three months of decline due to containment measures.

The quarterly balance sheets released by several companies on Thursday were also mixed.

Bank of America thus lost 3.87% while its net profit, weighed down by the money put aside to meet the arrears of its customers, slipped by 54%.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley (+ 1.16%), on the other hand, benefited greatly from the activity of its traders and generated record revenues and profits in the second quarter.

The pharmaceutical and hygiene products group Johnson & Johnson (-0.80%), launched in the race for the vaccine against Covid-19, for its part saw its results drop in the second quarter because of the pandemic, but revised its targets slightly upwards.

For Charles Schwab analysts, "the explosion of the new Covid-19 cases seems to continue to bring some discomfort (on the markets) just like the tensions between the United States and China".

But for Patrick O'Hare of Briefing, "the inability of the indices to fuel their recent gains at the opening could simply be linked to the idea that the indices are ripe for a decline".

In addition to corporate results and indicators in the United States, investors are digesting a myriad of variegated information, on growth in China, on the European Central Bank or on the ongoing discussions in Congress on possible financial aid. extra, he says.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the American debt fell to 1.6102%, against 0.6299% Wednesday evening.

© 2020 AFP