The Dow Jones fell 1.14%, the Nasdaq index rose 0.14% and the broader S&P 500 index lost 0.20%.

"Equity markets were hesitant on the back of digesting mixed results from banks", a "discouraging" indicator and rising bond yields, Edward Moya of Oanda said in a note.

The three-day weekend, with Monday holiday in the United States, also contributed to cutting the momentum of the New York place.

Goldman Sachs (-6.44% to 349.92 dollars) published a profit well below expectations in the fourth quarter, marked in particular by the melting of income from debt issues and IPOs.

The bank also tripled its provisions for bad debts compared to the same period of the previous year.

Investors also noted that the American damage insurer Travelers (-4.60% to 185 dollars) had also missed the target of the forecasts, handicapped by the significant cost of the damage caused by the winter storm Elliott, which swept the States States at the end of December.

The sky frankly darkened with the publication of the threshold indicator of the day, which highlighted a much sharper drop than expected in manufacturing activity in the New York area, to -32.9 points in January against -11.2 in December, the lowest level since August 2020.

In the bond market, yields rose, partly due to better than expected indicators in China (GDP) and Germany (investor sentiment), which further stimulated the flow of capital to Europe and the markets emerging, already at work for several weeks.

The yield on 10-year US government bonds, which moves inversely to their prices, rose to 3.54%, from 3.50% on Friday.

Listed, Goldman Sachs' competitor, Morgan Stanley, fared better (+5.91% to 97.08 dollars), with sales and earnings slightly above analysts' expectations.

While investment banking suffered (-49% for revenue), asset management resisted and provisions remained at a moderate level.

But Morgan Stanley could not prevent almost the entire sector from gearing up behind Goldman Sachs, whether it was JPMorgan Chase (-1.55%) or Bank of America (-2.02%).

If the banks dragged the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 into the red, the Nasdaq saved its skin thanks to a few very volatile stocks, such as Tesla (+7.43%), the graphics card manufacturer Nvidia (+4.75 %) or PayPal (+0.88%).

“We see these struggling stocks recovering, while the Dow catches its breath, which is completely normal after a significant rise,” commented Adam Sarhan, of 50 Park Investments.

The Nasdaq thus managed to record its seventh positive session in a row.

"There are a lot of headwinds" in the market, noted the manager, "and we are only at the beginning of the earnings season. It is too early to judge the health of American companies, but there there is a high probability that we are in a recession in results."

Elsewhere in the table of values, Silvergate Capital (+0.98% to 13.33 dollars), parent company of Silvergate Bank, nicknamed the "bank of cryptocurrencies", was sought despite having reported a loss of 1 $.04 billion in the last quarter of 2022, following the turbulence that the market experienced after the failure of the FTX platform.

Beyond that, the values ​​of the sector put their noses out the window, in tune with bitcoin, which took more than 25% in ten days. Riot Platforms (+6.48%) jumped, as did the Coinbase trading platform (+8.32%).

© 2023 AFP