New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended in disarray on Friday, rather gloomy in the absence of progress in negotiations on a plan to support the US economy and recording its first weekly decline in three weeks.

The flagship Dow Jones index advanced 0.16% to 30,046.37 points.

The technology-dominated Nasdaq lost 0.23% to 12,377.87 points and the S&P 500 lost 0.13% to 3,663.46 points.

Over the week, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq are down by a large half a percentage point and the S&P 500 by one point.

"Negotiations around further US economic aid, while positive, are going nowhere," noted Jake Scott de Schaeffer.

Discussions are blocking Congress on the plan to support the economy, Democrats and Republicans have still not managed to put aside their deep differences, while social assistance related to Covid-19 will expire at the end of the month for millions of Americans.

Despite the optimism around the imminent arrival of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, the United States, the country most affected in the world by the epidemic, have just recorded nearly 6,000 deaths from Covid in 48 hours, and their overall toll approaching 300,000 dead.

"The two factors pushing the market down are the lack of progress on the fiscal stimulus front and the disappointing news from the UK on Brexit," said Karl Haeling of LBBW.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday considered the failure of post-Brexit negotiations "very very likely".

The latter and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen left until Sunday to decide on the "future" of the talks.

Investors also seemed to take a break after the records set in recent weeks: "There are signs of excessive enthusiasm in the market and investors are a little divided on the way forward", noted Mr. Haeling.

- Excessive enthusiasm?

-

Among these signs of perhaps disproportionate enthusiasm, the expert pointed to the shattering IPOs this week of Airbnb and the doordash food delivery man.

The title of the Airbnb housing rental platform, which had more than doubled when it went public on Thursday (+ 113%), dropped 3.77% at the close on Friday.

DoorDash, which had finished up 85% on the day it went public, lost 5.91%.

“Nobody really knows why these things are being traded at such a high price above their value,” the LBBW expert wondered.

"If the overall market was thus up sharply, that would give me more concern," however stressed the portfolio manager.

The title of Tesla stalled, after its records of the last few days, losing 2.72% to 609.99 dollars as a note from Jefferies was skeptical of the ability of the manufacturer of high-end electric vehicles to dominate its market.

Disney climbed 13.59% after presenting investors the day before its offensive and streaming successes with Disney +.

The title of the Pfizer laboratory, whose vaccine is awaiting an imminent green light from the US health authorities, dropped 1.46%.

The bond yield on 10-year Treasury bills lost ground to 0.8931% against 0.9063%, with bonds, a safe bet, attracting investors.

© 2020 AFP