France Media

At around 10 am, the Dow was down 0.29%, the tech-intensive Nasdaq was down 1.55%, and the S&P 500 lost 0.63%.

The day before, the Nasdaq fell 2.70% to 12,997.75 points, as investors watched bond prices sour. The Dow Jones index fell 0.39% to 31,270.09 points. The S&P 500 lost 1.31% to 3,819.72 points.

Unemployment claims rose in the US last week, disappointing analysts who saw them decline as optimism returns with the ongoing vaccination campaign. They numbered 745,000, more than the 725,000 that analysts had expected and the more than 736,000 that had been registered the previous week.

Schwab analysts noted that “US stocks’ development is mixed at the start of this turbulent session as markets await comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in the early afternoon. ”

The president of the US central bank, who is due to speak at a conference, is eagerly awaiting the issue of higher bond prices due to concerns about a warming economy and the return of “ inflation ”.

For Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com, Jerome Powell should “continue to take a very appropriate approach” of monetary policy that, through zero interest rates and asset purchases, fully supports the financial system and recovery.

During his last speech to Congress last week, the Fed chairman asserted that if there was an acceleration in the rate hike, it would only be temporary.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which exceeded 1.50% last week and made markets nervous, rose above 1.46% on Wednesday.

Among the shares, Disney lost more than 1% after announcing the closure of 60 US stores.

Square, an online payment specialist, led by Twitter chief Jack Dorsey, is down more than 5% after announcing the acquisition of rapper Jay-Z’s music streaming platform for nearly $ 300 million. Twitter lost more than 2%.

Cloud (remote computing) data storage group Snowflake, its initial public offering in September, fell 3.50% after results were less good than expected.