The New York Stock Exchange is struggling to find a clear direction on Thursday following producer price statistics, which do not point to more generous monetary policy from the Fed in the immediate future.

In late morning trading, the Dow Jones was down 0.6% at 38,230.1 points, while the Nasdaq Composite clawed back 0.3% at 16,221.5 points.230.1 points, while the Nasdaq Composite clawed back 0.3% to 16,221.5 points.

On an annual basis, the producer price index rose by 2.8% over the last twelve months, excluding food, energy and commercial services, accelerating from the 2.7% recorded in February.

Following yesterday's higher-than-expected consumer price figures, these data point to persistent inflationary pressures in the US, ruling out the scenario of a rapid Fed rate cut.

According to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, the probability of a reduction in the cost of money at the end of the June meeting is now estimated at just 20%.

Nevertheless, stock markets remain generally undecided.

While the S&P has climbed 8% since the start of the year and set new records, signs of fatigue are beginning to appear, and nobody seems to want to make a real commitment any more.

A sign of the prevailing indecision, bargain-basement buybacks are few and far between, despite the previous day's sharp decline, and are mainly affecting blue-chip stocks such as Nvidia (+2%) and AMD (+1.8%).

After the shocks caused by the inflation figures, Wall Street hopes to come to its senses tomorrow, with the unofficial start of the corporate earnings season, which will be given by the publications of JPMorgan, Citi and Wells Fargo.

On average, S&P 500 companies are expected to report a 3.2% rise in first-quarter profits, their third consecutive quarter of growth.

Should this improvement in corporate accounts actually materialize, stocks should benefit, as this would justify a rise in share prices on the basis of unchanged valuation ratios.

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