by Lewis Krauskopf, Medha Singh and Bansari Mayur Kamdar
(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange finished higher on Thursday as fears over the impact of the Omicron variant on the economy continued to fade and economic indicators boosting investor morale ahead of Christmas.
The Dow Jones index gained 0.55%, or 196.67 points, to 35,950.56 points.
The larger S & P-500 gained 29.23 points, or 0.62%, to 4,725.79 points.
The Nasdaq Composite, for its part, advanced 131.48 points (0.85%) to 15,653.37 points.
Unemployment claims in the United States remained stable last week at 205,000, a figure below the level before the pandemic. In addition, consumer sentiment has improved since the start of the month and consumer spending has increased. [nZON004S2W ]
Indices from the industrials and consumer discretionary sectors were among the best performers of the session.
The announcements of the laboratories AstraZeneca and Novavax concerning the effectiveness of their vaccines against Omicron helped to allay the fears of the investors.
The arrival of the new variant of the coronavirus has helped increase market volatility for much of the last month of 2021.
“There was a lot of negative sentiment as we approached the end of the year, and investors likely continued to see fairly strong economic growth and fairly positive developments in healthcare innovation. health around COVID-19, equities are therefore a bit outbid and investors are looking to allocate capital at the end of the year, “said Matthew Miskin, strategist at John Hancock Investment Management.
Transaction volumes are expected to be lower than usual before the holiday season.
Wall Street will be closed on Friday due to the Christmas holidays.
In stocks, Tesla rose after its boss, Elon Musk, said in an interview published Tuesday that he had sold “enough shares” to meet his goal of divesting 10% of the capital of the electric vehicle maker.
(French version Camille Raynaud)