New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange started in the red on Thursday, with the Nasdaq falling again, after an unexpected increase in weekly jobless claims and pending a speech from the Fed boss.

Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones index dropped 0.29%, the technology-intensive Nasdaq plunged 1.55% and the S&P 500 lost 0.63%.

The day before, the Nasdaq had fallen 2.70% to 12.997.75 points, investors keeping their eyes on the tension of bond rates.

The Dow Jones had slipped 0.39% to 31,270.09 points.

The S&P 500 lost 1.31% to 3,819.72 points.

Unemployment claims rose in the United States last week, disappointing analysts who saw them decline as optimism is reborn with the current vaccination campaign.

They stood at 745,000, more than the 725,000 expected by analysts and more than the 736,000 registered the week before.

"The evolution of US equities is mixed at the start of a turbulent session as the markets await comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in the early afternoon," noted Schwab analysts.

The boss of the American Central Bank, who is due to speak at a conference, is eagerly awaited on the issue of the rise in bond rates caused by fears of an overheating of the economy and a resurgence of the 'inflation.

Briefing.com's Patrick O'Hare says Jerome Powell should "continue to have a very accommodating tone" on monetary policy which, through zero overnight rates and asset purchases, fully supports the system financial and recovery.

During his last speech to Congress last week, the President of the Federal Reserve assured that if there were to be an acceleration in the rise in prices, it would a priori only be temporary.

The yield on 10-year Treasury bills, which had exceeded 1.50% last week and made markets nervous, moved above 1.46% on Wednesday.

In terms of shares, Disney lost more than 1% after announcing the closure of 60 stores in the United States.

Square, the electronic payment specialist, led by Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, dropped more than 5% after announcing the takeover of rapper Jay-Z's music streaming platform for nearly $ 300 million.

Twitter lost more than 2%.

The cloud data storage group (remote computing) Snowflake, which went public in September, dropped 3.50% after worse than expected results.

© 2021 AFP