Around 2:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones advanced 0.48%, the Nasdaq lost 0.67% and the S&P 500 dropped 0.20%.

Bond rates on 10-year Treasury bills, which had eased the day before, rose to 2.76% from 2.69%.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones index gained 1.01% to 34,564.59 points, the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 2.03% to 13,643.59 points and the S&P 500 advanced 1.12% to 4,446. .59 points.

"This is the last session of the week, which has been volatile for stocks and bonds alike," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com, recalling that the New York market will be closed the next day for Good Friday.

It's also a closing session for options contracts, which usually makes trading very volatile, the analyst added.

Twitter was the center of attention with the surprise and unsolicited offer to buy Telsa boss Elon Musk on the social network for $54.20 a share, or $43.4 billion. .

The social network's board of directors replied that it would "carefully examine the offer to determine the course of action that it believes serves the best interests of the company and all shareholders".

The richest man in the world, who has a fortune of 274 billion dollars, announced last week to have become the largest shareholder of Twitter by acquiring 9.2% of the capital.

Twitter shares climbed 2.80% to $47 as Elon Musk's hostile bid offered an 18% premium to Wednesday's closing price.

Tesla shares fell 2.46% to $997.

Investors were also digesting a series of mixed banking results.

Goldman Sachs saw net profit decline in the first quarter but did better than expected as strong brokerage activity helped offset lower investment banker trading.

Revenue generated by the bank's traders rose 4% from the first quarter of 2021, but the institution's overall revenue fell 27% to $12.9 billion, which remains above expectations.

The title of Goldman Sachs rose 1.70% to 327.60 dollars.

Citigroup announced for its part that it has provisioned 1.9 billion dollars to deal with possible losses linked to its exposure in Russia and the impact of the conflict in Ukraine.

Its earnings per share, the benchmark on Wall Street, was however displayed above expectations, at 2.02 dollars in the first quarter.

Its turnover fell by 2% to 19.2 billion dollars, but also exceeded forecasts.

The action of the group rose 2% to 51 dollars.

Among the indicators, retail sales in March rose less than expected, mainly driven by the rise in gas prices.

They rose by 0.5% against 0.6% expected, spurred on by the jump in sales of service stations (+8.9% over one month).

In Frankfurt, the European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed the end of its asset purchase program "in the third quarter", but remained vague on its intentions on interest rates, indicating again that a first rise could occur "some time later".

The inflation rate in the euro zone broke a new record in March, at 7.5% over one year.

The piano manufacturer Steinway has also announced that it plans to go public, without giving a date for the moment.

© 2022 AFP