The Dow Jones index lost 1.15% to 29,926.94 points, the technology-dominated Nasdaq fell 0.68% to 11,073.31 points and the broader S&P 500 index 1.02% to 3,744.52 points, depending on final results.

“Stocks declined, shedding some of the gains from earlier in the week as investors await September jobs numbers,” Schwab analysts noted.

With the employment barometer, investors want to know if the labor market is easing with less job creation, which would go in the direction of a slowdown in inflation.

The tighter a labor market, the more pressure there is for wage increases, which promotes higher prices in general.

September's unemployment rate is expected to be stable from August at 3.7%, and 250,000 job creations are expected, according to Briefing.com, compared to 315,000 in August.

"It's a day when you had to be extremely brave to make an investment with the employment figure expected tomorrow. This prevented you from taking large positions," Gregori Volokhine, portfolio manager at Meeschaert, told AFP. .

"We were in a waiting position" because "a figure above 250,000 new hires and the market will fall, a figure below and the market will rise", he summarized.

During the day, investors also listened to multiple statements from Federal Reserve officials who expressed their determination to continue with rate hikes until inflation showed clear signs that it had peaked.

First, Lisa Cook, the new Fed Governor, warned in her maiden speech that continued rate hikes might be needed.

"Inflation is too high, it needs to come down, and we will continue until the job is done," she said.

Then Neel Kashkari, of the Minneapolis Fed, drove the point home, during an interview with the Bremer Financial Corporation, assuring that "the bar was high" before the American central bank changed policy.

"There is almost no sign that underlying inflation has peaked," he said, referring to wages still trying to catch up with rising prices and the cost of services continuing to rise. .

Rise in bond rates

"Right now as soon as someone opens their mouth on the Fed side, it plays a role," Volokhine conceded.

"But for the moment, she wants to show her discipline and her will to fight against inflation so there are hardly any surprises to be expected from her," added the analyst.

"We know very well that it is not the friend of investors for the moment" by raising rates "and it will not become tomorrow the day before".

Bond yields on 10-year notes climbed to 3.81% from 3.75% the previous day.

Added to this was a somber speech on the global outlook from IMF boss Kristalina Georgieva on the eve of the Fund's and World Bank's fall meetings.

Central banks "must stay the course" against inflation, she said in an interview with AFP.

She also warned that the world's already modest economic growth prospects would be revised downwards.

Among the values, IBM dropped 2.79% despite the announcement of an industrial investment of 20 billion dollars over ten years in the New York region.

Alphabet profited little (+0.02%) from Google's presentation of the new generation of its Pixel phone, the seventh of the name.

Pinterest jumped 4.83% after a favorable rating from Goldman Sachs for the social network.

Twitter fell 3.61% to $49.45 as Tesla boss Elon Musk put a new damper on his renewed takeover bid by saying the social network refuses to stay an ongoing lawsuit.

Tesla lost 1.11%.

Investors welcomed the new job cuts (-500 people) at Peloton (+4% to 8.83 dollars) while the manufacturer of connected exercise bikes is struggling for its survival.

The only sector to do well, energy (+ 1.82%) in the wake of a sharp rise in crude prices after the decision of OPEC + producers to reduce their production.

© 2022 AFP