The Dow Jones index fell 1.02% to 33,530.83 points, the tech-dominated Nasdaq lost 1.98% to 11,799.16 points and the S&P 500 dropped 1.58% to 4,071.63 points.

The VIX index, known as "fear", which measures market volatility, jumped 15%.

"It must be said that this is the first day since March 22 where the major indices decline by more than 1%," said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, interviewed by AFP.

Edward Moya, an analyst for Oanda, said: "U.S. stocks have softened between mixed corporate results, banking nervousness and the news that President Joe Biden will run for re-election."

The banking sector in particular weighed down the market, in the wake of the collapse of the shares of the regional bank First Republic. The one that had concluded sharply up 12% the day before was laminated Tuesday, collapsing 49.38% to 8.10 dollars.

The Californian bank announced after the close of the markets on Monday a 41% meltdown - or $ 72 billion - of its net deposits in the first quarter. Several major U.S. banks have given him funds to help him.

Rout

The news spread wide.

"It was a little scary on the bank side," Sosnick acknowledged, observing the rout of shares of other regional banks such as PacWest (-8.92%) or Western Alliance (-5.65%).

The big banks also took the water losing between 2% and 3%, from Bank of America to JPMorgan via Citigroup.

The technology sector looked grim, with Amazon plowing strongly (-3.43%) before the publication of its results on Thursday.

Alphabet fell 2.03% but revived in electronic trading (+4.53%). Google's parent company beat expectations with a net profit of $15 billion in the first quarter.

Same pattern for Microsoft (-2.25% at the close, then +4.68%), which published quarterly results significantly higher than expected with a 7% year-on-year increase in revenue to $ 52.8 billion.

An important emblem of the vitality of the activity, the express carrier UPS worried investors, falling by almost 10%. It warned that the economic slowdown and changes in consumer habits were weighing on its business.

To this was added the Conference Board's index on US household sentiment, which suffered a much larger decline in April than expected, especially in the face of recession fears.

In the bond market, yields on two-year Treasuries fell 15 basis points to 3.93% from 4.08% the previous day.

This illustrates "the flight to safe havens" caused by banking fears, said Steve Sosnick.

Despite this decline in bond yields, the dollar rose in value, climbing 0.65% against the euro to $ 1.0974 to the euro, another indicator of the sharp risk aversion around 20:15 GMT.

© 2023 AFP