New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange opened lower Thursday, amid doubts about the momentum of the US economy but also further profit taking after better-than-expected company reports.

Around 2:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones dropped 0.31% to 34,824.03 points, the Nasdaq 0.25% to 14,608.71 points and the extended S&P 500 index 0.32% to 4,360.23 points.

"The tone is the same (...) as since the start of the week," said Patrick O'Hare, of Briefing.com, in a note.

In addition to the specter of inflation, dominate "concerns about growth" American, according to him, as well as profit taking after a first round of positive quarterly results but widely anticipated by the market.

On the macroeconomic level, manufacturing activity grew at a record pace in New York State in July, and manufacturers noted a rise in sales prices "at the fastest rate ever seen".

In contrast, activity in the Philadelphia region, considered a leading indicator of the US economy, slowed more than expected, compared to last month.

The US central bank (Fed) also released two other indicators on Thursday, industrial production, which grew less than expected in June, and the production capacity utilization rate of US industry for the same month, also lower than expected by the market.

These last three indicators are likely to fuel Wall Street's doubts about the ability of the US economy to maintain the pace of growth it experienced in the first half of 2021.

On the business side, the American investment bank Morgan Stanley (+ 0.08% to 92.53 dollars) on Thursday published a net profit and a turnover above expectations.

However, operators also retained the 45% drop in trading revenues, to a lower level than expected.

Oatly, giant oat milk decline (-2.80% to 19.97 dollars), weighed down by a note from the company Spruce Capital Management, specialist in short sales.

In its paper published Wednesday, Spruce Capital suggests that Oatly has underestimated some of its costs and may never be profitable.

The group disputed this analysis.

The asset manager Blackstone (+ 2.78% to 101.39 dollars) benefits from the announcement of an agreement with the American insurer AIG, which will entrust it with management of approximately 50 billion dollars in assets, with the goal of rising to 100 billion within six years.

AIG was also up, 1.98% to $ 47.33.

Twitter lost ground (-0.44% to 69.96 dollars) after announcing Wednesday the stop of its Fleets application, which made it possible to produce ephemeral videos similar to what Snapchat or Instagram already offers.

The social network explained that it had made this decision due to the low activity observed on Fleets, launched last November.

© 2021 AFP