US Stock Exchanges Take a Breather: Wall Street Between Record Highs and Risks

After an impressive rally at the American stock exchanges, which had previously produced record numbers for the key indices, Wall Street took a pause on Wednesday. Investors hesitated to expand their positions as they awaited new economic data – inflation figures for January are expected on Thursday and the ISM indicator from the manufacturing sector on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down and closed with a marginal drop of 0.06 percent at 38,949.02 points. The broader S&P 500 fell by 0.17 percent to 5,069.76 points, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 recorded a loss of 0.54 percent to 17,874.50 points. In the spotlight of individual stocks stood Unitedhealth, whose securities suffered a setback of three percent, thereby emerging as the laggard of the Dow Jones. The trigger was a report from the "Wall Street Journal" shortly before the end of the previous trading day, which announced an antitrust investigation by the Justice Department against the health insurer. Neither the corporation nor the department wanted to comment on this. The earnings performance of individual companies remained a focal point of investor interest. Ebay achieved a value increase of almost eight percent with its business figures and a positive outlook for the first quarter and the full year, making it one of the leaders in the S&P 500. First Solar showed no signs of a crisis and was able to convince with its earnings and forecasts despite missing sales expectations, which led to a three percent rise in its shares. Beyond Meat recorded a jump of almost 31 percent after the provider of meat alternatives, despite a decline in business, had surpassed market expectations. In other news, shares of Applied Materials fell upon revelations that US government agencies had made renewed inquiries regarding the company's deliveries to Chinese customers. This uncertainty led to a downturn of 2.6 percent. Technical difficulties at the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase led to mixed effects on related stocks. While some like Microstrategy and Marathon Digital could report gains of 10.5 and 2.4 percent respectively, others such as Riot Platforms and Cleanspark suffered losses of 6.9 and 13.5 percent, respectively. Coinbase itself closed with a slight increase despite issues with transactions. The European currency was valued at 1.0837 US dollars at the close of the stock exchange in New York, compared to the reference rate of 1.0808 dollars of the European Central Bank from the previous day. In the US bond market, futures contracts for ten-year government bonds benefited from the subdued mood in the stock market and rose by 0.29 percent. In return, the yield fell to 4.27 percent.