According to final results, the Dow Jones index fell 2.82% to 33,811.40 points, registering its worst session of the month.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.55% to 12,839.29 points and the S&P 500 dropped 2.77% to 4,271.80 points.

Prices continued to react to more hawkish remarks by Jerome Powell, President of the American Central Bank (Fed), regarding inflation.

The central banker said Thursday that a hike in key interest rates of half a percentage point "was on the table" for the next monetary meeting in early May.

"Bad day today!" Summed up Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital.

"Obviously, the markets fear that rates will rise again after what Jerome Powell said: the descent began on Thursday and accelerated on Friday," said the analyst.

Friday marked the fourth consecutive negative week for the index of star stocks and the third in a row for the Nasdaq and the S&P 500. The thirty values ​​of the Dow Jones were all in the red.

National Securities' Art Hogan discerned "strong anxiety about the aggressiveness of the Fed."

"The market is spooked by how quickly the 10-year bond yield has risen," Hogan added.

Rates on 10-year Treasury bills remained at 2.89%, after hovering around 3% overnight (2.96%).

Jamie Cox of Harris Financial Group went further: "Markets have a strong sense of unease about the growing likelihood of policy error by the Federal Reserve."

– Madness –

“When a Fed official suggests a 50 basis point hike, markets immediately start trying to price in 75 basis point hikes,” the analyst translated.

"It's really madness. Most investors would do well to ignore these anticipations (...) while waiting to see what really happens with the rates".

Some remained optimistic for the following week when an impressive salvo of corporate results is on the program with Microsoft, Apple and Google (Alphabet) in particular.

"The market will focus again on the results and maybe they will reverse the negative sentiment caused by the aggressiveness of the Fed", suggested Peter Cardillo.

The eleven sectors of the S&P ended down, with materials in the first place (-3.73%) followed by health services, communications and banks.

The energy sector dropped more than 2.40% in the wake of a drop in crude prices, weighed down by the confinements in China linked to Covid-19.

The big names in tech, a growth stock par excellence that are very sensitive to interest rates, looked gray like Apple (-2.78%), Facebook (Meta, -2.11%) or Google (- 4.26%).

Netflix, terribly battered this week after a decline in its subscribers, still dropped 1.24% to 215.52 dollars.

American Express fell 2.75% to $180.64 despite better than expected results in the first quarter of 2022, benefiting from higher spending on travel and leisure thanks to the recovery of activity in many countries.

The Gap clothing brand plunged nearly 18% to $11.72 as its quarterly earnings forecast was lowered and the director of its subsidiary Old Navy announced her departure.

Snap, parent company of the social network Snapchat, rose 1.16% to 20.76 dollars.

While the social network's advertising sales fell in the first quarter as the war in Ukraine discouraged investor spending, the group said the number of users of the service, which is very popular among young people, rose by 18. % to 332 million.

Twitter recovered 3.93% to 48.93 dollars after a week rich in new episodes around Elon Musk's desire to buy the social network.

The Tesla boss seems determined to get his hands on the microblogging network while Twitter's board has adopted a "poison pill" to dissuade him.

Rare solidly positive trajectory, the action of the American group of hygiene products Kimberly-Clark jumped 8.13% to 138.51 dollars after announcing a good quarterly result coupled with higher forecasts for sales for the year .

© 2022 AFP