Wall Street in search of direction

The U.S. market is moving in the second session of the trading week with small fluctuations and changes of signs, as investors continue to assess the possibility of an impending recession.

In particular, the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.04% to 30,956 points, the broader S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 3,835 points, while the technology-weighted Nasdaq slipped 0.3% to trade at 11,290 points .

Overall, the market is looking to find its footing after a highly volatile session yesterday, with the S&P 500 making a comeback from losses of 2% in the last hours, while the Nasdaq outperformed by +1.75%.

In any case, however, investors’ attention remains almost entirely focused on the possibility of a coming recession, with the indications increasing more and more as the so-called inversion of the bond curve was also observed yesterday. That is, the yield on the 10-year US bond fell below that of the two-year – one of the most telling signs of a loss of confidence in the economy’s outlook, which consistently suggests a recession is on the way or has already arrived.

In the same context, despite extremely limited supply, oil (WTI) prices yesterday fell below $100 for the first time since late April, with both contracts plunging as much as 10% on concerns about slowdown in economic activity that will completely destroy the demand for crude oil.

Characteristically, the energy sector of the S&P 500, which was the best performer of all in the first half of the year, lost 4% yesterday.

According to analysts, however, the recession is likely to be mild, while Credit Suisse went further in estimating that it will eventually be avoided, although it lowered its target for the S&P 500 at the end of the year.

″The market was preparing for a recession and now it may actually be embracing it. The idea is: let’s get over it, we’ll have a recession, let’s go, let’s do it. Let’s get rid of the hyperbole and start over,” notes US market guru Ed Yardeni on CNBC.

According to him, “the market is starting to look ahead, to next year and that could very well be a year of recovery from whatever recessionary environment emerges. In a way we’re all doing Hamlet: let there be a recession or not. I believe there will be a mild recession.”

On the board, the top of the Dow Jones is Merck with gains of 1.6%, followed by Procter & Gamble and Walmart with +1.5% and +1.4% respectively, while Chevron, on the other hand, makes a new dive of 1.7% and Goldman Sachs and Boeing are moving at -1.3%.