New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange, which hit a record high for the S&P 500 on Tuesday, traded in disarray on Wednesday after a slowdown in job creation in the private sector in July in the United States.

At 4:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones index dropped 0.49% to 34,944.89 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, which oscillated between green and red, gleaned 0.08% to 14,772.37 points.

The extended S&P 500 index dropped 0.30% to 4,410.05 points.

The day before, the Dow Jones index had gained 0.80%, very close to a record, the Nasdaq had advanced 0.55% and the extended S&P 500 index, more representative of the American market, had climbed 0, 82% to 4,423.25 points, a new high.

“The earnings season has certainly been a positive catalyst for the markets over the past three weeks,” noted Art Hogan of National Securities.

"Strong earnings and expectations of continued central bank support have propelled US stocks to all-time highs, resisting the spread of the Delta variant as well as a surge in inflation attributed to related bottlenecks pandemic, "he added.

But on Wednesday, a poor employment figure cast doubt on investors at the opening.

Job creation in the private sector in July, according to the survey by the firm ADP, came out less than half of what was expected, only 330,000, and concerned almost only services.

"This disappointing increase suggests that labor shortages are still acute," said Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics.

For Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com, "this news is a bit worrying for the official employment report scheduled for Friday which could be worse than expected."

According to analysts' median forecast, the US economy created 900,000 new jobs last month for an unemployment rate down 0.3 points to 5.6%.

Yields on 10-year T-bills suffered the blow, slipping sharply to 1.1390% against 1.1722% the day before as bonds appeared as safe havens with fears that the Delta variant would slow the recovery.

On the equity front, automaker General Motors (GM) was down almost 7% after an annual earnings per share forecast fell short of expectations.

GM also expects the semiconductor supply difficulties to continue.

Despite posting profits for the first time, chauffeured car reservation (VTC) Lyft was down 6.48% to $ 51.71.

The company posted a net profit of $ 23.8 million from April to June on revenue of $ 765 million but said it was struggling to rebuild its team of drivers.

Its rival and industry leader Uber, whose title fell 1.98% to 41.93 dollars, must announce its quarterly results after the close.

The American laboratory Translate Bio which Sanofi announced the repurchase for 3.2 billion dollars was stable (+ 0.03% to 37.68 dollars) after having been in sharp rise in the forward contracts before the opening.

Translate Bio is a specialist in messenger RNA, an innovative technology used in particular in anti-Covid 19 vaccines which works with the French pharmaceutical giant.

The maker of the future Covid vaccine Novavax climbed 11.10% to $ 210 after the European Commission announced it had entered into a contract for the advance purchase of 200 million doses of its vaccine once it was approved by the European Medicines Agency.

The title of brokerage app Robinhood, which went public last week, was the subject of intense speculation.

The action, introduced without much success to 38 dollars last Thursday, soared briefly to + 85% a few minutes after the opening.

Suspended for a moment, it was up 50% to $ 70 at 4:00 p.m. GMT.

© 2021 AFP