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 monthly index 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.

Kodak action has continued to gain momentum since Wednesday, when the group was exonerated from insider trading in connection with a large government loan received to produce components for generic drugs.

The action climbed another 13.18% to 12.11 dollars after rising more than 25% the day before.

After computer storage company Snowflake, which went public on Wednesday, it was Unity, the 3D software group for the video game industry, to be featured on its first day at Wall Street.

Unity stock finished up 31.44% to $ 68.35 from an introductory price of $ 52.

Snowflake, a "cloud" company founded by two French people in California, which deflated in the session after its huge IPO in mid-week, resumed gains at the end of the day.

It finished at $ 240, still double its introductory price, up 5.48%.

The Zoom videoconferencing application has regained strength after a sharp drop of more than 25% at the start of the month in the wake of the big names in tech.

It finished up 6.20% to 438.73 dollars.

This Friday also marked the day of the "4 witches", ie the expiration of major derivative contracts, causing volatility.

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

© 2020 AFP