The New York Stock Exchange is set to open on a mixed note on Monday morning, with investors taking a break to prepare for the latest inflation figures and the earnings season, in a market weakened by Boeing's heavy downturn.

Half an hour before the opening, the Dow Jones futures contract dropped 0.4%, while the Nasdaq contract nibbled just over 0.1%, heralding a mixed start to the session.

Boeing shares, one of the Dow's main weights, are headed for a drop of over 7% at the opening after Alaska Airlines decided to ground its Boeing 737 MAX-9s following an incident in which a door was ripped off in flight.

This drop is equivalent to a market capitalization loss of over $11 billion.

This mishap comes at a time when Boeing and its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which manufactured the panel, are grappling with production issues that have hampered recovery from a lengthy downtime of the 737 MAX for safety reasons, and a wider disruption due to the pandemic," recall Kiplink analysts.

The incident is expected to penalize the US airline industry as a whole, with the FAA requiring immediate inspections of 737-9 aircraft with the same configuration as the aircraft concerned.

Investors should also refrain from taking any risks as banks open the quarterly publication ball on Friday, with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo in particular.

According to FactSet data, financial analysts expect S&P 500 corporate earnings to have fallen by 1.3% in the fourth quarter compared with the same period last year.

Beyond earnings, investors are awaiting inflation figures, to be released on Thursday, to see if a rate cut can really be envisaged in March.

While waiting for these statistics, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond confirms its recovery above the technical 4% mark, at 4.05%.

Oil prices are down sharply after reaching last week's highs since the end of 2023, buoyed by logistical disruptions in the Red Sea, where attacks are raging.

The February contract for US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) is currently down 3.8% at $71.

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