New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange took off sharply at the opening Friday at the end of a week shaken by speculative fever.

At 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones index lost 0.75%, the Nasdaq dropped 0.65% and the S&P 500 fell 0.67%.

The day before, Wall Street had rebounded, the Dow Jones having advanced 0.99% to 30,603.36 points.

The technology-intensive Nasdaq rose 0.50% to 13,337.16 points.

The broader S&P 500 index gained 0.98% to 3,787.38 points.

"It's a mess. The market is a mess," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.

"This is not only because of the fall in stocks but the tone of market conditions, where we see both a stigma of the vogue for short selling, an anger at the restrictions. brokerage and too vague explanations of the nature of these restrictions, "complained the analyst.

The popular American online brokerage sites, such as Robinhood and TD Ameritrade, on Thursday limited the trading of GameStop (GME) and AMC shares in particular but also of Blackberry or Nokia to curb extreme volatility around these securities which are the subject of 'a stock market battle.

Some limitations remained in place on Friday but trading had resumed.

GameStop, the title of the video store chain causing the turbulence, was up nearly 70% to 326 dollars, after losing 43% the day before.

For the second time since this feverishness set in a week ago, the Stock Exchange Constable, the SEC, said in a statement Friday "monitor and assess" the volatility of certain stocks.

"We will act to protect small investors when the facts demonstrate abusive or manipulative stock market activity that is prohibited by federal securities laws," the SEC said.

AMC, the title of the chain of cinemas also at the center of the showdown between hedge-funds and private investors against the establishment of the financial market, jumped again (+ 61%).

The VIX index, which portends volatility, had risen above 30%.

"The heightened volatility persists following this week's market disruption by a cohort of individual traders targeting stocks" that professional investors had bet lower, observes Wells Fargo analysts.

The earnings season continued to be in full swing, with mixed reviews for Caterpillar (+ 0.40%) and Chevron (-3.40%) which suffered from the crisis and for Colgate (+ 0.40%) which took advantage of it.

The government has also published the figure for inflation which accelerated more than expected in December to + 0.4%, even if it moderated over one year to 1.3%, which could capture the attention of the markets.

The good news is that US household incomes rose in December for the first time since September, thanks in part to the $ 900 billion aid plan recently adopted by Congress.

But, bad news for consumers, their spending fell 0.2%.

In the bond market, the 10-year yield on Treasuries accelerated upward to 1.0842% from 1.0449% the day before.

© 2021 AFP