New York (AFP)

Wall Street, which had started the session poorly on Thursday, reduced its losses considerably to end all the same in the red, still paralyzed by health and political concerns.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lost 0.07% to 28,494.20 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, lost 0.47% to 11,713.87 points and the extended S&P 500 index dropped 0.15% to 3,483.34 points.

The New York Stock Exchange had started the session clearly in the red, worried about the impact of the resurgence of Covid-19 in Europe and without much hope of a plan of American economic support before the presidential election of November 3.

“At the start of the session we thought we were going to have a good down day but the trend turned around,” explained Karl Haeling of LBBW.

"The market has the feeling, that even if in Europe there are restrictions" after an acceleration of contamination with Covid-19, "the rhetoric is stronger than the measures imposed", he added.

"The market does not believe in a total closure of activity" in Europe.

France has announced the establishment from Saturday and for one month, of a curfew between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the Paris region and in eight other metropolises.

Germany will also introduce new restrictive measures.

"The market is driven more at the moment by technical considerations than by fundamental news," said the analyst, as the indices tested low on Thursday before rebounding without any specific news causing the turnaround.

The Dow Jones index lost more than 250 points during the session and then recovered.

"The markets mourned the likelihood of a budget support plan ahead of the elections, when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicated that lawmakers remained far removed from any potential deal," Schwab analysts said. .

The indicators released Thursday also weighed on market sentiment.

Weekly jobless claims in the United States started to rise again last week, unexpectedly, showing the fragility of the economic recovery.

On October 10, some 898,000 people were unemployed, the highest since August, against 845,000 the previous week, a figure revised upwards.

Manufacturing activity also developed in contrasting fashion in October, registering moderate growth in the New York area but a sharp rebound in the Philadelphia area, according to data from the regional offices of the Fed.

© 2020 AFP