Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones dropped 0.30%, the Nasdaq index gained 0.35% and the broader S&P 500 index nibbled at 0.11%.

Prior to the open, futures on major indices hovered between red and green, within tight margins, a sign of a lack of investor conviction.

For Patrick O'Hare, of Briefing.com, "it is the technical movements which direct the market", for lack of clear direction.

On Monday, the S&P 500 thus relied on a major technical threshold (the average of the last 50 trading days) to end in positive, with exchanges that "lack of inspiration", according to the analyst.

For Quincy Krosby, of LPL Financial, the New York place was helped by a flow of fresh money, linked to the calendar, with Tuesday being the last day of February.

"That said, concern remains about the Fed's (US central bank) next decisions," she added.

Operators now give a non-negligible probability (26%) to a half-point increase in the key rate on March 22, after the next Fed meeting, a scenario that no one suggested a year ago. month.

Another emerging hypothesis, that of four increases of a quarter point each in March, May, June and July, while Wall Street was only considering one until recently.

The vision of a more aggressive Fed on the monetary level is supported by a series of recent indicators which have surprised on the upside, painting the picture of a US economy whose announced slowdown is slow to materialize.

In this context, investors welcomed Tuesday the activity index in the Chicago area, which showed in February a contraction stronger than expected by economists.

The general circumspection of operators has been maintained by a series of mixed results of companies, according to Patrick O'Hare.

The Target supermarket chain rose (+3.12%) after the publication of results that exceeded expectations for the quarter from November to January.

CEO Brian Cornell described a "very delicate context" at the start of the year.

The cruise operator Norwegian Cruise Line (-9.82%) paid a significantly higher than expected net loss in the fourth quarter of 2022, linked to a surge in its costs.

The Miami company expects a 100% occupancy rate for its cruises in the first quarter.

Manchester United continued to decline (-1.59%), after several British media reported on the possibility of maintaining control of the Glazer family club, which could opt for the entry of a minority shareholder rather than a sale of all of their shares.

The video conferencing platform Zoom (+0.05%) was supported by quarterly results better than expected by analysts.

The group expects to see its growth decelerate even more, around 1% over the year, but is counting on a net profit higher than forecast.

Goldman Sachs fell back (-2.19%), against the backdrop of the bank's investor day, opened by CEO David Solomon.

He indicated that the establishment was studying “strategic alternatives” for its retail banking activity, which has developed in recent years but whose results are considered unsatisfactory.

Meta advanced (+3.92%), the day after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of a team dedicated to so-called generative artificial intelligence, that is to say capable of generating content in response to questions or queries in everyday language.

On the bond market, the rates tightened again after a lull on Monday.

The yield on 10-year US government bonds rose to 3.95%, against 3.91% on Monday at the close.

© 2023 AFP