(New York) The New York Stock Exchange ended in disarray on Friday on a lackluster market, with investors showing caution at the end of a truncated week marked by new records.
The Dow gained 0.04%, the NASDAQ fell 0.18% and the S
Throughout the session, the indices moved within tight margins, unable to find a clear direction.
“Because of Juneteenth,” a holiday that caused the market to close on Wednesday, “a lot of people went on vacation early,” noted Sam Stovall of CFRA.
The analyst also mentioned the fact that Friday was the expiration of a massive amount of index and stock futures, an event called “three witches’ day” which often causes increased volatility.
In addition, “we are approaching the end of the month and the quarter and people do not want to sell the stocks that have progressed the most because they want to show their clients that they have them in their portfolio,” added Sam Stovall .
The consolidation movement, which began on Thursday after seven consecutive NASDAQ records, continued, but in very limited proportions.
The locomotive of Wall Street for months, the semiconductor sector has been hardest hit. The giant Nvidia (-3.22%), which became the world’s largest capitalization on Wednesday, fell to third place, behind Microsoft and Apple.
Its rivals Broadcom (-4.38%), Qualcomm (-1.36%) and Micron (-3.22%) were also battered, as were Meta (-1.38%) and Apple (-1.04%).
The latter, which had been soaring for ten days, was penalized on Friday by the announcement of the postponement of the launch of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) system, Apple Intelligence, in the European Union.
The decision is linked to the group’s concerns about the compliance of this system with the European DMA regulation, which came into force at the beginning of March.
The market mood also darkened with the publication of the PMI indices of S
In both cases, they are significantly above 50, which indicates an expansion and tempers the impression of a slowdown in the American economy, likely to postpone the first rate cuts by the American central bank (Fed ).
These figures were put into perspective by those concerning prices, sales and supply, which both experienced a slowdown.
The bond market reacted little. The yield on 10-year US government bonds stood at 4.25%, compared to 4.26% at Thursday’s close.
For Sam Stovall, “next week could be positive” for stocks, “but what worries me is July. Will investors start taking profits with the start of the new quarter? “, he asked, recalling that the summer months are often less favorable for stock markets.
Just like Thursday, the decline of some AI stars benefited, marginally, the stocks of the old economy, in particular McDonald’s (2.20%), Nike (1.68%) and Coca-Cola (0.95 %), allowing the Dow Jones to finish in the green.
On the market, the Gilead laboratory (3.18%) continued to ride on the good results of a clinical study on lenacapavir as a preventive treatment against HIV. The biotech already markets this molecule under the name Sunlenca, but for the treatment of patients already carrying the virus.
Spirit AeroSystems was also sought after (6.00%). Reuters reported that an agreement for its takeover by its former parent company, Boeing, was close.
Cryptocurrency players suffered from the depression of bitcoin, at its lowest level in a month, in particular the “miner” (creator of digital currencies) Marathon Digital Holdings (-7.02%) or the electronic currency exchange platform Coinbase (-3.90%).
