New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended the week in the red on Friday, still weighed down by losses in the technology sector, during this "4 witches" day, conducive to high volatility.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, ended down 0.88% to 27,657.42 points while the Nasdaq lost 1.07% to 10,793.28 points and the broader S&P 500 index lost 1 , 12% to 3,319.47 points.

Over the week, the DJIA remained almost stable (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq, hit by the downturn in the big names in tech and under pressure for two weeks, limited its losses to -0.5%.

The index with strong technological coloring had fallen by 4% the week before, and by 3% the previous week.

"Investors seemed to ignore the good news from the US Consumer Confidence Index" and "the tech sector has deepened its losses," said analysts at Charles Schwab.

The University of Michigan's monthly survey hit a high since the start of the pandemic, climbing to 78.9 points from 74.1 points in August, well above expectations.

It helped the Clues make a short foray into positive territory early in the morning.

However, analysts noted that consumer confidence was boosted by the good form of Wall Street in July and August when the Nasdaq climbed to its record highs, pulling the entire New York Stock Exchange.

“In general, the upward slope of stock prices in July and August has driven consumer expectations,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The markets were also "disappointed" after the meeting of the American Central Bank (Fed), said Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou of JP Morgan Securities, hoping in vain for an extension of the maturities of assets bought by the Fed to support the recovery.

The tech sector once again weighed in on the market, as doubts persisted around Congress' second stimulus bill as well as the vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

At Schwab, we also highlighted the tensions between China and the United States around the Chinese applications TikTok and WeChat, whose downloading will be banned in the United States from Sunday.

Among the big names in tech, Apple lost 3.17%, Amazon 1.79% and Facebook 0.90%.

Tesla on the contrary, which has suffered since mid-September, ended up 4.42% to 442.15 dollars.

The software giant Oracle, engaged in negotiations with Tiktok, dropped 0.71% to 59.75 dollars.

This Friday also marked the day of the "4 witches", that is to say the expiration of important contracts of derivative products, generating volatility.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt rose to 0.6953% against 0.6887% on Thursday evening.

© 2020 AFP