New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange fell heavily on Thursday, weighed down by the Nasdaq, after the intervention of the boss of the American Central Bank (Fed) Jerome Powell and the rise in bond rates.

According to final results, the Nasdaq, which concentrates technology stocks, dropped 2.11% to 12,723.47 points for its third session of losses in a row.

With a drop of nearly 10% since its last record on February 12, the Nasdaq is approaching the market correction zone.

The Dow Jones lost 1.11% to 30,924.14 points.

The S&P 500 fell 1.34% to 3,768.47 points.

The Russell 2000 index, which includes the smallest listed companies, also lost 2.76%.

Wall Street started the day nervously after disappointing weekly jobless claims of 745,000, more than the 725,000 expected by analysts and more than the 736,000 the week before.

But the market clearly took a nosedive midway through the session as yields on 10-year Treasuries surged.

They stood at 1.55% at 9:30 p.m. GMT against 1.48% the day before.

These bond rates, already on the alert for two weeks because of fears of an overheating economy and a resurgence of inflation, reacted to an intervention by Jerome Powell, chairman of the Fed.

The latter was once again placid in the face of rising rates and brushed aside fears of too high inflation to come, indicating that a price hike would only be temporary.

"While the markets may have expected the Fed to react to this rate hike (...), it has instead embraced the idea that yields are rising because of the positive economic outlook," he said. Mazen Issa of TD Securities.

Markets seemed to be hoping for a change in tone from the Fed, including a sign that the central bank could change the profile of its asset purchases, selling its short-matured securities to acquire longer-matured bonds and calm down. higher yields.

"Mr. Powell said the Fed would be vigilant about market conditions and wouldn't do the stupidity to let inflation run like it did in the 1970s, but he didn't say he was ready to introduce concrete measures to stop the sale of the vouchers, "commented Karl Haeling of the LBBW bank.

Yields move in the opposite direction to bond prices.

A rise in rates is therefore synonymous with a significant movement in the sale of Treasury bills.

Reacting to this cost of more expensive borrowing, the stock market was sanctioned, especially the Nasdaq, which concentrates so-called growth technology groups because they borrow to grow.

In terms of shares, Disney lost 2.24% after announcing the closure of 60 stores in the United States.

Paypal lost 6.25% while its electronic payment competitor Square, led by Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, dropped 6.74% after announcing the takeover of rapper Jay-Z's music streaming platform for nearly $ 300 million.

Twitter lost 5.80% and Spotify lost 5.07%.

Cloud data storage group (remote computing) Snowflake, which went public in September, fell 1.20% after weaker-than-expected results.

© 2021 AFP