(New York) The New York Stock Exchange was down on Wednesday, the day after the US Congressional elections which did not see the expected Republican wave arrive and some results of which are still pending.
Around 10:20 a.m., the Dow Jones dropped 0.35%, the S&P 500 lost 0.32% and the NASDAQ, disturbed by the rout in the cryptocurrency sector, fell 0.56%.
“The market is falling because we don’t have all the results yet, so these elections are a pretext for taking profits” after several days of increases for the New York Stock Exchange, commented Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital.
On Tuesday, anticipating election results that will lead to a paralysis of the Democratic administration, the Dow Jones index had gained 1.02% to 33,160.83 points, the NASDAQ, with strong technological coloring, had advanced by 0.49 % at 10,616.20 points and the S&P 500 by 0.56%, at 3828.11 points.
“Election day has passed, but the elections are not over. There are still a few duels that are too close to report, but it looks like the Republican Party is going to dominate the House of Representatives by a narrow margin,” explained Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.
The final composition of the Senate is suspended on the results of four seats.
Paralysis enjoyed
“Whatever the outcome, the margins will be very narrow and we are heading towards a paralysis of the government anyway,” added Peter Cardillo. Few political changes are then to be expected, whether in the regulations of the banking or energy sectors, for example, or the tax code, which is not to displease the financial markets.
The dollar fell back slightly (-0.50% against the euro at 1.0022 dollars for one euro) while 10-year bond yields rose slightly to 4.15% (+0.6%).
While uncertainty remained over the final election results, volatility reigned in the crypto-asset sector, Schwab analysts pointed out.
The setbacks of the FTX platform, which had to call on its rival Binance to deal with a liquidity problem and which will sell it most of its activity have worried the sector.
Bitcoin had reached $17,172.43 on Tuesday evening, its lowest since November 2020, before rising again, falling 9.27% to $17,659 around 10 a.m.
The Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange platform dropped -2.96%, the online brokerage application Robinhood fell further, to -8.32% after a 19% plunge the day before.
The Roblox video game platform fell 10.25% after announcing at the market open on Wednesday a loss in the third quarter.
Walt Disney fell more than 10% to 89 dollars while its Disney + streaming service doubled its operating losses despite a strong increase in the number of its subscribers.
Meta (Facebook) was hailed by investors, climbing 7.63% to 103.83 dollars while Mark Zuckerberg’s group announced the loss of 11,000 jobs or some 13% of its workforce.
Hiring within the group, which also owns the social network Instagram and the instant messaging service WhatsApp, is also frozen until the end of March 2023.
