New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange closed lower on Friday as traders worried about continued high inflation bad for the market.

The Dow Jones followed a fifth session of decline, for the first time since mid-June.

The flagship Wall Street index thus ended down 0.87% to 34,607.72 points.

The Nasdaq index, with a strong technological component, lost 0.87% to 15,115.49 points, and the extended S&P 500 index, 0.77% to 4,458.58 points.

For Jack Ablin, investment manager at the management company Cresset Capital, this bad patch is linked to a succession of disappointing macroeconomic figures, which question the real health of the American economy.

The market seemed ready to rebound at the opening, rather seduced by the announcement of US President Joe Biden of the obligation of vaccination against the coronavirus in all companies with more than 100 employees.

But the atmosphere quickly became gloomy during the session.

Investors also noted with concern that the producer price index in the United States reached 8.3% over one year in August, the fastest pace ever recorded since this statistic was published (2010).

The news got the bond market reacting, with US 10-year government bond rates instantly climbing 1.29% to over 1.35%, before leveling off at 1.34%.

"The thing that could change the position of the Fed (American Central Bank) is inflation," said Jack Ablin.

"And right now the inflation numbers are even bigger than the jobs numbers."

The persistence of inflation would thus put the Fed under pressure, whereas it has always maintained until now that the phenomenon was transitory.

This would make monetary tightening, which the markets fear, more likely.

In the microeconomics department, the session was marked by the sharp decline in Apple, which suffered (-3.31% to 148.97 dollars) from the decision of a federal judge in California.

The magistrate banned the Cupertino (California) giant from forcing publishers to use its payment system, but felt that Apple was not in an illegal monopoly situation.

While it was seen as a partial victory for Apple, which avoids the ball of antitrust, the decision has benefited several companies that rely heavily on its App Store.

This is the case with Match (+ 4.23% to $ 164.38) or Bumble (+ 4.53% to $ 58.20) dating sites.

The financial company Affirm, specialist in online credit purchases, soared (+ 34.37% to 123.70 dollars) after the publication of a quarterly turnover above expectations and attractive forecasts for its fiscal year 2022 (from the beginning of July to the end of June 2022).

The group expects revenues to rise from 33% to 36%, without taking into account the recent partnership with Amazon, announced at the end of August.

Payments on credit and in installments, not very popular in online commerce so far, are growing in popularity, which Affirm is enjoying.

Operators reacted badly to video game publisher Take-Two Interactive's announcement (-1.97% to $ 153.94) that the new version of its iconic game Grand Theft Auto would not finally be released until March. 2022, instead of November 2021 as initially planned.

Sanctioned at the end of August after results and forecasts deemed disappointing, the group of exercise bikes and connected treadmills Peloton continued to recover (+ 6.83% to 114.39 dollars), after the announcement Thursday of the launch of its own line of sportswear, Peloton Apparel.

Several Chinese companies listed on Wall Street continued to suffer on Friday after a new reframing this week of several internet giants by Chinese authorities.

The "Chinese Uber", Didi, notably dropped 4.78% to 8.57 dollars.

© 2021 AFP