The Federal Reserve's unexpected change of tone on the evolution of its monetary policy resulted in a sharp rise in bond yields, to the detriment of equities, while benefiting the dollar.

By suggesting that it was beginning to consider a reduction in its purchases of bonds on the markets and that it could raise its rates as early as 2023 and no longer in 2024, the Fed threw a chill on Wall Street on Wednesday, while favoring a sharp increase in the yields of Treasury bills and the dollar. Futures on major New York indices are signaling an opening down 0.33% for the Dow Jones, 0.29% for the Standard & Poor's 500 and 0.41% for the Nasdaq.

Investors will watch in particular at 12:30 GMT the weekly figures for jobless claims in the United States. In Europe, the largest sectoral decline is for the utilities compartment, which is suffering from competition from government bonds with the rise in yields: its Stoxx index lost 1.57%. Commodities (-1.31%) were penalized by the appreciation of the dollar, used for the quotation of most of them (the prices of copper, nickel and aluminum fell by more than 1%).