New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange lost ground on Monday at the start of the session, affected by multiple uncertainties and the difficulties of the technological pillars.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lost 2.05% to 27,089.98 points around 2:00 p.m. GMT.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, dropped 1.23% to 10,660.81 points.

The extended S&P 500 index lost 1.69% to 3,263.36 points.

Wall Street had concluded a third weekly decline in a row on Friday, particularly affected by the new downturn in the tech giants: over the week, the Dow Jones fell by 0.3%, the Nasdaq by 0.5% and the S&P 500 0.6%.

“The catch-all explanation for the situation this morning is that there is a high sense of uncertainty that is spreading in the political, economic and social fields,” said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing. com.

"Therefore, there is not a great deal of confidence at this time to step up and buy risky assets", continues the expert.

Among the reasons for fear for the market, Mr. O'Hare mentions the surge in new cases of Covid-19 in recent days in Europe, which raises fears of new containment measures and could weigh on the economy.

In the United States, the death on Friday of the dean of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggests a bitter political battle and sharp tensions for her replacement, which Donald Trump intends to appoint this week.

The American tech giants continued to suffer from selling pressure, which began at the start of the month: Apple (-1.29%), Amazon (-1.38%), Facebook (-2, 82%) and Alphabet (-1.87%), the parent company of Google, were all in decline.

Microsoft (-1.35%) also fell despite the announcement of its acquisition of ZeniMax, the parent company of the video game group Bethesda Softworks for 7.5 billion dollars.

Several big names in the banking sector were also struggling after revelations of an international survey affirming that astronomical amounts of dirty money had passed through these institutions for years: JPMorgan fell 3.18% and Citibank 2.81 %.

For its part, the manufacturer of electric and hydrogen trucks, Nikola plummeted (-19.41%) with the announcement of the resignation of its founder Trevor Milton, in turmoil after serious accusations that the group is built on lies.

Oracle (+ 2.10%) and Walmart (+ 0.62%), on the other hand, took advantage of the agreement announced over the weekend to make them partners, technological for the first, commercial for the second, of the social network TikTok in the United States.

The project, which could also see the two groups take shares in TikTok, was approved by Donald Trump, the American president specifying on Monday that he demanded that American companies have full control of the application.

© 2020 AFP