New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended lower Tuesday after the big gains of the day before, where the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq had posted their best session in several months.

The Dow Jones index lost 0.46% to 31,391.52 points.

The Nasdaq, which jumped more than 3% on Monday, dropped 1.69% to 13,358.79 points.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.81% to 3,870.29 points.

"We saw some profit taking after the jump the day before but some stocks remained in the green such as energy or automakers," noted Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities.

"The market actually took a break when there was little economic news," the analyst said.

"The economic calendar was dormant Tuesday," also noted Schwab analysts.

"But it should revive Wednesday with a barometer of activity in services in February and the Fed's Beige Book", which gives the latest temperature of the US economy before a monetary meeting of the central bank in two weeks.

Fears around bond rates, which climbed to 1.60% last week on fears of a resurgence in inflation, have subsided significantly.

By the close of Wall Street, the yield on 10-year Treasuries had fallen back to 1.40%.

"As long as rates continue to ease, the market should stabilize," said Peter Cardillo.

The lull on the bond front was helped by reassuring statements about the continued ultra-accommodative monetary policy of the US Central Bank (Fed) by Governor Lael Brainard.

At a conference, she said the Fed would be patient and that it does not intend to tighten monetary policy anytime soon, at least not before full employment returns.

If inflation occurs, it should be "temporary", assured the member of the Monetary Committee of the Central Bank.

Among the actions of the day, the video conferencing application Zoom made the yoyo, losing 9% at the close after gaining more than 4% in the morning, while it announced a turnover up 327 % in 2020 with the pandemic which made education and remote work necessary.

Among the laboratories manufacturing anti-Covid vaccines, Moderna lost 6.73% and Novavax, whose vaccine is awaiting approval in May, according to the press, has dropped more than 14%.

Among the big techs, Tesla concluded down 4.45%;

Apple and Facebook fell more than 2%.

A bout of speculation hit the action of online mortgage lender Rocket Companies.

The title closed up 71% to 41.60 dollars, a surge reminiscent of that of the video game distributor GameStop, whose share has been the subject for several weeks of a showdown between large investment funds , betting on its collapse, and amateur traders on internet forums.

© 2021 AFP