Geopolitical tension sinks Wall Street

Geopolitical tensions and inflation crushed the New York stock market this Friday, while banks inaugurated the quarterly earnings season dully.

The Dow Jones index lost 1.24%, to 37,983.24 points, the Nasdaq 1.62% to 16,175.09 units, and the S&P 500 1.46% to 5,123.41 points.

In Europe, the indices started the day strongly but the momentum did not last long: Paris lost 0.16% and Frankfurt 0.13%. London, on the other hand, gained 0.91%.

“Fear played a role today” in the stock market, commented Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital.

“The market is concerned about an extension of the conflict” in the Middle East, explained the analyst, who highlighted that intelligence information “indicates that Iran will respond to Israel this weekend.”

Iran’s threat to retaliate against Israel after an attack in Syria in which two Iranian generals were killed remains “real” and “feasible,” the White House estimated this Friday.

Faced with this panorama, investors bet on safe values.

Gold hit a new record of $2,431.52 an ounce during the day, although it ended up closing at $2,338.90. Since the beginning of March, gold has risen nearly 18%.

“We attended gold purchases out of fear at the beginning of the day,” Cardillo acknowledged.

The dollar also reached a maximum since November against the euro, at $1.0639 for each European note around 7:40 p.m. GMT.

Oil reached peaks since October and then gave some ground.

Banks opened the earnings season, in general with numbers above expectations but generating mixed reactions in the market.

Dow Jones member JPMorgan Chase fell 6.43% to $182.87, dragging down the market. Its president, Jamie Dimon, warned of inflationary pressures that “compressed profit margins.”

At the macroeconomic level, the US import price index confirmed that inflation is still under pressure: the increase was 0.4% in March, for the third consecutive month.

Among the values ​​​​of the day, shares of semiconductor manufacturers fell after announcements from China, which seeks to reduce its dependence on American manufacturers. Intel collapsed 5.16%, AMD 4.23% and Nvidia 2.68%.

Tesla, for its part, lost 2.03% to $171.05 after several analysts lowered their price targets for the stock and cited saturation of demand for electric vehicles.