New York (AFP)

Wall Street ended the week in disarray on Friday, being satisfied with monthly employment figures and the unemployment rate in the United States but worried about the new Sino-American escalation and the deadlock in congressional negotiations on the stimulus plan.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 0.17% to 27,433.48 points, recording a sixth consecutive increase.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, on the other hand fell 0.87% to 11,010.98 points.

The broader S&P 500 index gleaned 0.06% to 3,351.28 points.

For the week as a whole, the Dow Jones gained 3.80%, the Nasdaq gained 2.47% and the S&P 500 appreciated 2.45%.

The US economy created 1.8 million jobs in July, according to a monthly Labor Department report released on Friday.

This figure is well below June, when 4.8 million jobs were added, a record. The July slowdown is due in particular to the resurgence of the virus in a large part of the country.

The unemployment rate in the United States fell to 10.2% in July, down 0.9 percentage point from June. Analysts had expected a rate of 10.5%.

According to Shawn Cruz of TD Ameritrade, the report has been "well received" by the market, as it "corresponds to what one would expect with reopening of businesses" despite the increase in cases of contamination in the country.

The New York Stock Exchange was however weighed down by the renewed tensions between Washington and Beijing, which crystallized this week around radical measures by Donald Trump against Chinese mobile applications TikTok and WeChat.

According to Cruz, these decrees pose a risk of retaliation from China against American technology companies.

"If that happened, it would be a big factor of volatility", indicates the expert, who recalls the stock market weight of the American giants of the Internet.

In fact, Amazon (-1.78%), Microsoft (-1.79%), Apple (-2.27%) and Alphabet (-0.44%), the parent company of Google and YouTube, have all finished. down Friday.

The sanctions announced by Washington on Friday against Hong Kong leaders have further escalated Sino-American tensions.

In addition, market players have been disappointed with the lack of compromise between Democrats and Republicans in Congress around new measures to help communities, businesses and households hit by the impact of the pandemic.

Following Friday's unsuccessful negotiations, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that he intended to recommend Donald Trump to act by presidential decree.

In the bond market, the rate on the US 10-year debt rose to 0.5640% around 8:35 pm GMT against 0.5362% Thursday evening.

© 2020 AFP