The Dow Jones index yielded 0.39%, the Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, 0.15% and the broader S&P 500 index 0.12%, around 2:50 p.m. GMT.

The day before, the last session of January, the Dow Jones had risen by 1.09% to 34,086.04 points, the Nasdaq by 1.67% to 11,584.55 points and the S&P 500 by 1.46% to 4,076.60 points. .

Over the month, the Nasdaq recovered 10.7%.

The S&P 500 gained 6.2% and the Dow Jones 2.8%.

"The assumption is generally that the January barometer predicts market performance for the rest of the year" while 2022 has been a terrible year for the stock market, hoped Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.

But Wednesday, the markets had to cross "an obstacle, that of the meeting of the Monetary Committee of the Fed (FOMC) and the press conference of the president Jerome Powell", warned Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

In fact, market participants are confident that the FOMC will raise rates by just 25 basis points to between 4.50% and 4.75%.

"The obstacle is rather what Jerome Powell is going to say," relativized the analyst.

"Will he try to push back the idea of ​​a future easing of financial conditions (...) while the market hopes that the Fed will soon pause and even reduce its rate hikes before the end of the year?", asks Patrick O'Hare again, reflecting the questions of investors.

The Fed publishes its press release at 7:00 p.m. GMT before the press conference of its president half an hour later.

An indicator, job creation in the private sector in January, published by the firm specializing in pay slips ADP, showed Wednesday a sharp slowdown in hiring which could satisfy the Fed.

This could be a welcome reflection in his eyes of a cooling of the labor market, and therefore of inflation.

Hiring fell to 106,000 from 253,000 in December, but exceptionally bad weather, including flooding in California, could explain the slowdown.

We will have to wait for the official labor market figures on Friday.

As for corporate results, Meta's 4th quarter accounts are expected after the close.

The title of Facebook's parent company lost 0.91% to 147.72 dollars at 2:50 p.m. GMT.

The day before, Snap, which oversees the messaging application Snapchat, published worrying results for the sector which is financed by advertising revenue on the net.

Snap saw its sales stagnate in the 4th quarter and suffered a loss of $288 million against a profit of 2 million a year earlier.

And this despite an increase in users.

The stock plunged more than 13% to less than $10.

Chipmaker AMD was highly sought after (+5.78%) after the announcement of quarterly results that beat forecasts.

However, the group warned of a slowdown in sales for the current first quarter.

The video game publisher Electronic Arts fell by almost 12%, after disappointing projections between the delay in the release of the next Star Wars opus and the cancellation of two mobile games.

In the bond market, yields on ten-year Treasury bills eased a little to 3.48% from 3.50% on Tuesday.

© 2023 AFP