Around 13:55 GMT, the Dow Jones fell 0.18%, the Nasdaq index gave up 0.16% and the broader S&P 500 index gave up 0.22%.

"Despite comments last night from President (Joe) Biden and House Speaker (Kevin) McCarthy, who described their discussions as +productive+, the market remains concerned about the extreme positions of each side," said Quincy Krosby of LPL Financial.

If Kevin McCarthy believed, at the end of his meeting with the Head of State, that the exchanges had been the "best since we have been talking", no significant progress seems to have been made, less than ten days before the deadline to avoid a default by the United States.

"Traders seem tired of all these discussions and the lack of action to raise the debt ceiling," Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com said in a note.

Even if Wall Street does not show excessive tension for the moment, some indicators have already turned orange.

The VIX index, which measures market volatility, rose 3.8% on Tuesday.

Nervousness can also be seen in the bond market, where the yield on 3-month US government bonds rose to its highest level in 22 years, at 5.29%.

Rates were also tightening on long-term maturities. The yield on 10-year US government bonds stood at 3.73%, compared to 3.71% the previous day at the close.

"The debt ceiling psychodrama has been a recurring disruption lately, but we must add other elements, such as the specter of further rate hikes" by the US central bank (Fed), explained Patrick O'Hare.

Added to this is Wall Street's inability to break through some important technical thresholds, after the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recently recorded multi-month closing highs.

"The threshold of 4,200 points is difficult for the S&P 500, but we see an influx (on the equity market), especially from hedge funds," said Quincy Krosby, for whom an agreement on debt could allow the New York market to break down this resistance.

On the stock market, the DIY chain Lowe's (+1.77%) benefited from better-than-expected results, even if the group lowered its annual forecasts, in order to take note of "a lower than expected demand for non-essential expenses," said CEO Marvin Ellison.

The major retail chains are considered a barometer of consumption in the United States, the lung of the American economy.

Elsewhere on the list, the semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom (+0.98%) was supported by the announcement of a multi-billion dollar contract with Apple, to which it will provide elements for connectivity to the 5G network.

The Yelp business and restaurant referencing and evaluation platform climbed (+9.55%). The Wall Street Journal reports that the activist investment fund TCS Capital Management, which controls 4% of the capital, will ask the management of the social network to study a possible sale to a technology group.

Already well oriented on Monday, the regional bank PacWest was again sought after (+19.55%). The price of the Californian institution has more than tripled (+230%) since its low in early May, when it appeared as a possible victim of the banking crisis.

Other regional brands targeted recently by investors raised their heads, such as Bank of Hawaii (+3.28%) or Zions (+4.56%).

© 2023 AFP