The Dow Jones gained 0.61% and chained a fifth consecutive session of increases, while the Nasdaq index lost 1.63%.

The broader S&P 500 index dropped 0.61%.

The session was marked by the slippage of Meta, which weighs nearly 3% of the Nasdaq index.

The stock lost 24.56% on the day, to fall to its lowest level since January 2016.

In one year, the group of Menlo Park (California) has lost nearly 600 billion dollars in market capitalization.

Meta had announced, Wednesday after the stock market, a further decline in its quarterly turnover (-4%), the second in a row.

The social network is suffering from the slowdown in the advertising market, on which its model depends almost entirely, and from competition from other platforms, primarily TikTok.

Although it was by far the hardest hit, Meta dragged the entire tech sector with it, whether Apple (-3.05%), Amazon (-4.06%) or Alphabet (- 2.34%).

The Dow Jones, for its part, owed its salvation to the resistance of defensive stocks, sought after during an economic slowdown, which had, for the most part, published results deemed satisfactory.

This is the case of the Caterpillar construction machinery group (+7.71% to 212.14 dollars), driven by a turnover and a net profit well above forecasts.

He reported continued strong demand in the third quarter.

Another star of the day, the Merck laboratory, also well beyond analysts' forecasts, helped in particular by sales of its anti-cancer treatment Keytruda.

As for the cable operator Comcast (+ 1.49% to 31.97 dollars), it also benefited from a turnover better than anticipated by analysts, even if it recorded a loss following the depreciation massive stake in the British group Sky.

“Today is one of those days when it is easy to discern the sectors around which the various indices are concentrated,” commented Art Hogan, of B. Riley Wealth Management.

The analyst also noted the performance of the energy sector, "which continues to be a pillar" of the market, "while technology is clearly more mixed".

ExxonMobil (+0.38% to 107.55 dollars) thus reached the highest level in its history on Thursday.

Investors cautiously welcomed the announcement of 2.6% annual growth in the third quarter in the United States, a rate higher than the 2.3% expected by economists.

The world's largest economy has thus resumed the rise in its gross domestic product (GDP) after two quarters of contraction.

But for Art Hogan, this indicator "belongs to the past", because many data have since shown that the American economy is slowing down.

The quarterly GDP report itself also shows that the real estate sector is running out of steam, Art Hogan pointed out.

The prospect of a turnaround in the economic cycle favored the fall in bond rates, which accompany the scenario, now dominating among operators, of an American central bank (Fed) ready to slow down soon.

Twitter advanced (+0.66% to 53.70 dollars) and came a little closer to the price offered by Elon Musk (54.20 dollars), who is to conclude the takeover of the social network on Friday.

The title is at its highest since the start of the Twitter saga, almost seven months ago.

Tesla (+0.20% to 225.09 dollars), of which Elon Musk is the boss and the main shareholder, also benefited from what promises to be the end of a long turbulent sequence.

McDonald's (+3.31% to 265.11 dollars) progressed thanks to better than expected results, even if its turnover fell by 5% over one year in the third quarter.

The fast food chain remains affected by its exit from Russia.

On a like-for-like basis, its sales are up 9.5% year-on-year.

The tobacco company Altria folded (-1.92% to 45.42%) after the announcement of a net profit slightly below expectations.

The group from Richmond (Virginia) also unveiled on Wednesday a strategic partnership with the Japanese JT Group, which is very focused on heating tobacco, considered to be the alternative of the future to the combustion of tobacco.

© 2022 AFP