Around 14:25 GMT, the Dow Jones fell by 1.07%, the Nasdaq index fell by 0.30% and the broader S&P 500 index gave up 0.78%.

Wall Street had ended Thursday's session with fanfare, excited by the intervention of a group of major American banks, which will deposit $ 30 billion in the coffers of First Republic, considered the new weak link in the system.

The euphoria was short-lived and the indices quickly showed signs of running out of steam in post-closing electronic trading.

"The question now is whether it will be enough," asked Quincy Krosby, of LPL Financial, about the boost of the big names of the place to First Republic. "Questions remain about the soundness of the financial system."

Rising more than 10% the day before after having yielded up to 36% in session, First Republic was again desperate and fell 20.43% shortly after the opening.

Other regional and medium-sized retailers were targeted, such as California's PacWest (-12.14%), Western Alliance (-12.49%), headquartered in Phoenix (Arizona) and Texane Comerica (-8.91%).

The big banks were also in turmoil, like Goldman Sachs (-3.11) and JPMorgan Chase (also -3.77%), which dragged the Dow Jones down.

The VIX index, which measures market volatility, was up more than 4%.

Friday is a so-called "four witches" day, which corresponds to the maturity of several trillion dollars of derivatives based on stock indices or individual stocks. This deadline often reinforces Wall Street's volatility during the session in question.

Another indicator of traders' anxiety was that the purchase prices of U.S. Treasuries were soaring, pushing down their rates, with the two moving in opposite directions.

The yield on 10-year US government bonds fell to 3.42%, from 3.57% the previous day.

Despite the rise in bond yields and the tension of investors, the technology giants were in the green, like Alphabet (+0.87%) and Microsoft (+2.04%), the day after the announcement of the integration of new artificial intelligence tools in several of its software.

FedEx paraded (+8.16%) after raising its full-year forecast, despite a disappointment on its revenue for the third quarter of its staggered fiscal year (June to May). The group expects to have reduced its workforce by 25,000 positions over a year by the end of May.

Against all odds, bitcoin was swaying (+6.45%), although it is theoretically considered a risk asset. In its wake, stocks related to the cryptocurrency sector were gaining height, such as the "mining" specialist Riot Platforms (+9.81%) or the exchange platform Coinbase (+8.00%).

© 2023 AFP