Nervousness and mixed signs on Wall Street

LAST UPDATE 21:15

Wall Street’s main indicators continue with mixed signs in Tuesday’s trading in the nervous climate created by the new tension in US-China relations on the occasion of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the statements of high-ranking executives on the next moves of the Federal Reserve .

Cleveland Fed chief Loretta Mester warned today that the Federal Reserve still has work to do with rate hikes as inflation has not even peaked, denting hopes for a more dovish stance by the Fed in coming months to protect the economy.

“We have more work to do because we haven’t seen that change in inflation yet,” Mester said in an interview with the Washington Post. “It should be sustainable evidence, for a few months, that inflation has peaked – we haven’t even seen that – and is coming down,” he added.

Earlier Chicago Fed chief Charles Evans said the Fed could raise interest rates by 50 basis points at its next policy meeting in September if inflation does not improve, while a 75 basis point increase is also on the table.

“If anybody really thinks it’s not getting better … 50 (bps) is a reasonable assessment, but 75 might be OK. I don’t think anything higher is needed,” Evans told reporters on the sidelines of an event. at the bank’s offices in Chicago.

The Fed’s aggressive policy-tightening strategy has fueled concerns about the risk of the economy slipping into recession, with investors hoping the central bank will then slow rate hikes to avoid that risk.

Indicators – Statistics

On the board, the Dow Jones lost 227.77 points, or -0.69%, to 32,571.54, while the S&P 500 fell 6.44 points, or -0.16%, to 4,112.15. The tech Nasdaq gained 16.10 points, or 0.13%, to 12,385.57.

Of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial index, only five are moving with a positive sign and 25 with a negative sign. Travelers rose $2.65, or 1.7%, to $158.92, followed by Salesforce, up $183.52, up 0.30%, and Walmart, up 0.28%. at $132.91

The biggest losers are Caterpillar (-4.62%), Boeing (-2.48%) and Visa (-2.16%).

In the meantime, investors continue to monitor the progress of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which China considers a Chinese province.

Pelosi is the highest-ranking US elected official to visit the island in 25 years. The speaker of the House of Representatives heads a special congressional mission to the Indo-Pacific region, with visits to Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.

Beijing reacted angrily, warning of “severe consequences” and announcing military high schools shortly after Pelosi’s arrival on the island. The exercises will include joint air and sea exercises in the north, southwest, northeast of Taiwan, long-range firing in the Taiwan Strait and missile tests in the sea area east of Taiwan.

The new confrontation between the world’s two largest economies is heightening investor concerns about the risk of further escalation of tension with unpredictable consequences for the global economy.