The floor of the New York Stock Exchange (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/SPENCER PLATT)
The New York Stock Exchange closed sharply higher on Wednesday, driven by the Nasdaq and encouraging company results, after the decline the day before when tensions with China had weighed.
According to final results at the close, the Dow Jones index gained 1.29% to 32,812.50 points, the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 2.59% to 12,668.16 points and the S&P 500 1.56% to 4,155.17 points.
Stocks “took the uphill slide on better-than-expected earnings and economic data,” Schwab analysts said.
Same comment for Jack Ablin of Cresset Capital who felt that many companies’ results had turned out “better than expected”.
In addition, he said, recent comments by US central bankers “show that they are trying to load their rate hikes early, in an effort to control inflation.”
“But this is based on the idea that overnight rates will probably peak in January-February and will be lower for the rest of the year,” the analyst told AFP, giving investors confidence. investors. Especially since James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis Fed, assured Tuesday evening that if the Fed was going to have to “go higher” in terms of rates, the American economy should be able to maneuver “a landing in softness”, i.e. without severe recession.
– Optimistic indicator –
On the front of economic indicators, the growth of activity in services in the United States accelerated in July for the first time in four months, according to the barometer of the professional federation ISM.
The index rose to 56.7%, up 1.4 percentage points from June. This improvement was unexpected and pleased the market.
Investors were also relieved after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan.
The visit had sparked vehement protests from Beijing, which considers the island a province and which brought 27 military planes into the Taiwanese air defense zone, according to Taipei.
All S&P sectors ended positive except energy as oil prices tumbled more than 3% after the OPEC+ meeting and an unexpected rise in US crude inventories.
But the sectors of information technology (+2.69%), discretionary spending (+2.52%) – which showed renewed confidence in the economy – and communication services (+2.48 %) led the dance.
The electronic payment firm Paypal (+9.25% to 97.92 dollars) was celebrated after having increased its earnings forecast for the year and above all announced a share buyback program of 15 billion dollars. The group will also lay off staff.
Covid-19 vaccine maker Moderna, also on the Nasdaq, posted better-than-expected Q2 results and also announced $3 billion in share buybacks. Its title ended on a jump of 15.97% to 186.49 dollars.
The large caps of the Nasdaq were also all smiles like Apple (+3.82% to 166.13 dollars), Meta (+5.37%) or Amazon (+4%).
Drugstore and pharmacy chain CVS was sought (+6.30%) after it raised its 2022 profit forecast showing that demand for its non-prescription Covid-19 tests had helped thwart falling demand for vaccines.
Microprocessor maker AMD, on the other hand, fell 1.21% after lowering its forecast for the next quarter on weaker demand for PCs.
On the bond market, yields on 10-year bonds fell slightly to 2.70% instead of 2.74%. Those at two years remained stable at 3.06%.
© 2022 AFP
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