Around 2:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones gained 0.10%, the Nasdaq 0.83%, and the S&P 500 0.28%.

Tuesday, to conclude a month of May hyper-volatile due in particular to a severe rate hike decided by the American central bank (Federal Reserve, Fed) to fight against inflation, the Dow Jones of the star stocks had ended in decline by 0.67% to 32,990.12 points.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.41% to 12,081.39 points and the S&P 500 fell 0.63% to 4,132.15 points.

Over the whole month of May, the Nasdaq is down 2%.

The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 managed to remain marginally up, despite fears that temporarily plunged the S&P 500 into a "bear market" or bear market, that is to say 20% below its last record.

"The market is moving in the right direction for investors who endured a difficult May, in addition to the already difficult start to 2022," hoped Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

But for analysts at Schwab, "volatility will persist, as markets continue to face persistent inflation that pushes the Fed to step on the accelerator to tighten monetary policy."

They point out that the Fed's rate hikes and balance sheet reduction, which begins on Wednesday, "come amid signs of slowing US economic growth" with May manufacturing activity figures on Wednesday. and on Jobs Friday.

Beige Book

Investors will also wait for the publication of the Beige Book of the Fed in the second part of the session, the last report on the state of the economy which appears two weeks before the next monetary meeting and rate hike of the central bank.

For its part, the central bank of Canada announced on Wednesday a further rate hike of half a percentage point, raising its key rate to 1.5% to counter inflation.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden, Fed boss Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke officially at the White House "to show the public that they are on the same page in this battle against inflation persists," said Art Hogan of National Securities.

“Joe Biden hopes to show voters that he understands their concerns about high gas, food and other prices, while insisting on the independence of the Fed,” added the analyst.

On the stock market, just under half of the eleven sectors were in the green, driven by energy (+1.65%), communication services (+1.38%) and information technology (+ 1.34%).

Lagging behind were real estate (-0.62%) and the health sector (-0.42%).

The Salesforce customer relationship management platform pulled the Nasdaq by climbing more than 13%, while the group raised its forecast for the whole of the year.

The Adobe software group gained more than 4%, Shopify also, while the big names in tech also picked up colors, from Apple (+ 1.64%) to Amazon (+ 3.59%), via Google (+2.41%).

Lingerie group Victoria's Secret soared 8.59% to $44.75, after results just in line with forecasts, despite the impact of inflation and supply chain challenges.

Bond yields on 10-year Treasury bills were flat at 2.84%.

© 2022 AFP