Sentiment on Wall Street: Tesla pulls US stock markets down

Sentiment on Wall Street
Tesla pulls US stock markets down

Weak economic prospects have caused indices on Wall Street to fall. The electric car manufacturer Tesla in particular is depressing the mood. Shares are down nearly 10 percent.

Company figures that were received rather negatively and weak economic data weighed somewhat on the mood on the US stock markets. In addition, the next interest rate decision by the US Federal Reserve is approaching with the seasonally weak month of May. The leading index Dow Jones Industrial held up quite well with a minus of 0.33 percent to 33,786.62 points. The other indices lost a little more: The market-wide S&P 500 fell by 0.60 percent to 4129.79 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 lost 0.78 percent to 12,985.98 points.

While the number of weekly initial jobless claims rose slightly more than expected, the business climate in the Philadelphia area deteriorated significantly in April. Analysts had expected a moderate brightening. In addition, both leading economic indicators and sales of existing homes fell more sharply in March than forecast.

Among the companies, the electric car manufacturer Tesla in particular suffered from disappointing business figures: the shares lost almost ten percent as the bottom of the Nasdaq 100. They had already fallen on Wednesday after the announcement of further price cuts. In addition to the declining profitability in the first quarter, the surprisingly low cash inflow was also criticized. “Tesla is in trouble. The recent repeated price cuts is not something you do when the market position is strong,” said Paul Nolte, strategist at asset manager Murphy & Sylvest.

American Express loses points

Tesla 148.82

In the Dow, American Express was one of the biggest losers at minus one percent. The credit card company’s earnings per share fell short of expectations at the start of the year. The income, which was slightly higher than expected, and the confirmed annual targets could not compensate for this.

At AT&T, high inventory and capital expenditures, which severely impacted cash flow, outweighed higher-than-expected increases in mobile bills and a surprising number of new contract customers. The shares in the telecom group lost 10.4 percent – the largest daily loss since the turn of the millennium. They also dragged shares in Dow competitor Verizon, which lost 3.7 percent at the end of the index. Philip Morris shares fell 4.7 percent. A surprisingly high earnings per share of the tobacco company with moderately disappointing sales were not enough for further purchases.

The euro temporarily benefited from the weak US economic data, but moved away from the $1.10 mark in New York trading at $1.0967. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at 1.0944 (Wednesday: 1.0933) dollars and the dollar thus cost 0.9137 (0.9147) euros.

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