Around 2:10 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones fell 1.13%, the Nasdaq index, with strong technological representation, yielded 0.42%, and the broader S&P 500 index, 1.14%.

“There is a communicating vessels effect between last week and this one, and people continue to sell and ask questions afterwards”, commented Adam Sarhan, of 50 Park Investments.

“Broadly, the weakness this morning, and over the past few weeks, has been tied to concerns about economic and business growth,” Briefing.com's Patrick O'Hare wrote in a note.

These fears are fueled by the increasingly voluntarist discourse of officials of the American Central Bank (Fed), determined to curb inflation.

Operators are now counting on four consecutive rate hikes of half a point each, which would be a first for more than forty years.

Another source of concern for investors is the inability of the Chinese authorities to curb new outbreaks of Covid-19 despite strict confinements.

Some 51 new virus-related deaths were announced in Shanghai on Monday, a record for the Chinese economic capital, despite the measures in place.

New cases have also been reported in Beijing.

On the company side, the week promises to be the busiest of the season in terms of corporate results, with around a third of the values ​​of the S&P 500 and nearly half of the Dow Jones.

The market, which gave a terrible reception to the figures of Netflix (-2.27% in the first exchanges) last Tuesday, will closely follow Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Meta (ex-Facebook).

"The reaction to these results will tell me everything I need to know about the future direction of the market," explained Adam Sarhan.

"If the sales continue, we could return to recent lows and go into a + bear market +", that is to say a market down at least 20% from its high.

This is already the case for the Nasdaq, which has contracted more than 21% since its all-time high on Nov. 22.

However, "the market is so depressed at the moment that any good surprise, even modest, would support the market", according to Adam Sarhan.

The VIX index, which measures its volatility, climbed more than 6% on Monday and returned to heights it had not known for a month and a half.

After flirting with 3% last week, the yield on 10-year US government bonds eased significantly, to 2.77% against 2.90% on Friday, a sign of renewed appetite for bonds and , more generally, for assets deemed safe.

Twitter climbed (+ 3.78% to 50.76 dollars) after the announcement, by several media, of an imminent agreement between Elon Musk and the board of directors of the platform for its takeover.

The market toasted the health of Coca-Cola (+0.43% to 65.53 dollars), whose turnover and quarterly profits came out above expectations.

The beverage group managed to raise prices by an average of 7% without affecting demand.

Weighed down by the slide in crude oil, also marked by the specter of an economic slowdown, oil stocks lost ground, like ExxonMobil (-5.45%), ConocoPhillips (-5.37%) or Marathon Petroleum (-4.51%).

Same cold snap for the mining companies Barrick Gold (-4.61%) or Freeport-McMoRan (-4.56%).

© 2022 AFP