Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones yielded 0.53%, the Nasdaq index, with a strong technological flavor, 1.40%, and the broader S&P 500 index, 0.74%.

Wall Street, which had benefited the day before from a relaxation in the Ukrainian file, took note of the declarations of the Secretary General of NATO, Jen Stoltenberg, who said that he saw "no de-escalation on the ground", the day after the announcement by Russia of the withdrawal of part of its troops.

"Russia continues to strengthen its military presence" on the outskirts of Ukraine, Mr. Stoltenberg said, on the contrary.

"These recent developments have generated hesitation" in the market, commented Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com in a note.

Investors also lingered on the publication of retail sales in the United States for January, which rose 3.8% over one month, much more than expected (2.1%).

A figure "particularly impressive given the impact of the Omicron variant" of the coronavirus, commented Jeff Buchbinder, of LPL Financial.

"Wage increases support consumption despite inflation," he added.

To this indicator was added that of import prices, well above forecasts with a rise of 2.0% over one month, the strongest since 2011.

Year on year, import prices jumped 10.8%, the US Department of Labor announced on Wednesday.

The figure feeds the scenario of an accelerated monetary tightening of the American Central Bank (Fed).

The publication, at 7:00 p.m. GMT, of the minutes of the last meeting of the Fed's monetary policy committee should provide new indications on the pace of this tightening.

"In the short term, you have to get used to the fact that negative statements on Ukraine and signs of confirmed or above-expected inflation will drive the market down," said Gregori Volokhine, president of Meeschaert Financial Services.

“The question for an investor is what is going to be able to lift the market in the short term,” with an earnings season coming to an end and no sign of easing from the Fed.

"We are in a kind of + no man's land + with the balance leaning on the negative side for the market", summed up the manager.

On the odds, Meta (Facebook) continued its decline (-2.75% to 214.93 dollars), oriented towards its eighth negative day in ten sessions.

Since the publication of its results on February 2, the group has erased 300 billion dollars of capitalization, or a third of its value on the stock market.

the television group ViacomCBS was sanctioned (-20.12% to 28.75 dollars) after the publication of a net profit well below expectations.

The company, which is changing its name to Paramount Global, has, on the other hand, done much better than expected in terms of turnover and gained nearly 10 million additional subscribers to its Paramount+ online video services. and Showtime, reaching 56 million in total.

Profit and revenue above expectations for Airbnb (+ 2.67% to 184.87 dollars), which was sought at the start of the session.

The activity of the accommodation booking platform is higher than before the pandemic.

Airbnb expects first-quarter revenue to be much higher than analysts had been expecting so far.

The virtual platform Roblox unscrewed (-24.07% to 55.66 dollars), weighed down by a turnover below expectations and a net loss above forecasts.

The Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify was penalized (-16.93% to 738.92 dollars) by its statements on a probable slowdown in its growth in 2022, although having done better than expected in the last quarter of 2021.

© 2022 AFP