The main indexes describing the price development of stocks in the United States are looking for their direction at the start of trading.
The S&P 500, which tracks five hundred large American companies, was close to yesterday’s closing reading.
The Dow Jones, which follows thirty major companies, was up 0.4 percent, and the technology-focused Nasdaq was down 0.5 percent.
A semiconductor company Broadcom was one of the S&P 500’s heaviest decliners. The company reported a result that beat forecasts for the last quarter, but its revenue guidance for the coming quarter was weaker than expected.
At the time of writing, the company’s stock was down 9.5 percent at $138.52.
Regional bank manager: Now is the right time to lower interest rates
The key market driver was the US Department of Labor’s monthly employment report, based on which investors assess the state of the federal economy and the direction of the Fed’s monetary policy.
The numbers in the report did not bring relief to the assessment of the Fed’s actions.
According to information service Bloomberg, the head of the Fed’s New York regional bank John Williams commented in his speech in New York that now is the right time to lower interest rates.
The Fed has targets for both inflation and employment. Inflation has slowed down and at the same time the employment situation has weakened.
He stated in the discussions after the speech that he wanted to get to know today’s figures even more closely, but his quick comments were as follows.
“(The numbers) are in line with what we’ve seen – the economy is slowing and the labor market is cooling,” Williams commented.