A New York Stock Exchange operator (AFP/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)
The New York Stock Exchange ended higher on Thursday, boosted by better than expected indicators and rather calm about the speech of the President of the American Central Bank (Fed), scheduled for Friday.
The Dow Jones gained 0.98%, to 33,291.78 points, the Nasdaq index, 1.67%, to 12,639.26 points, and the broader S&P 500 index, 1.41%, to 4,199.12 points. .
After a small rise the day before, Wall Street managed to stay the course thanks to a series of macroeconomic figures well received by investors.
The gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States thus contracted a little less than expected in the second quarter (-0.6% against -0.9% initially announced), and weekly jobless claims came out slightly down, significantly lower than economists’ forecasts.
Separately, the activity index from the Fed’s Kansas City office showed that, despite decelerating, the region’s economy remained expanding in August, when a contraction was expected.
“The data has been really positive overall” in recent days, noted Nick Reece of Merk Investments.
After a mad dash that saw the yield on 10-year US government bonds gain almost half a point in ten days, the bond market took a break on Thursday. This same reference rate eased slightly, to 3.02%, against 3.10% the day before.
After initial tension, which largely explains the poor trajectory of the stock market at the start of the week, investors came to their senses and approached Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday without much apprehension.
“He probably won’t say anything unexpected,” Nick Reece said, “which may allow the market, relieved, to gain momentum.”
Wall Street is expecting a firm speech from the central banker, which keeps the fight against inflation at the center of the debate with, in sight, new rate hikes to calm the economy and the rise in prices.
“I don’t think Powell wants to make headlines” and surprise, abounded Art Hogan, of B. Riley Wealth Management.
On the stock market, operators reacted to the drop in bond rates by favoring technology stocks, which are very sensitive to financing conditions and essential to finance their growth.
Amazon (+2.60%), Alphabet (+2.62%) or Meta (+3.38%) shone and ignored a wave of mixed results from some stars in the sector.
The graphics card specialist Nvidia (+4.01% to 179.13 dollars) thus missed the target in large widths in the last quarter and announced a forecast of turnover significantly lower than expectations, which the group put on reduced customer appetite in certain sectors, notably video games.
Also more cautious than expected in its projections, revised downwards, the giant of customer relations and remote computing (cloud) Salesforce (-3.39% to 173.91 dollars) also invoked a slowdown in demand as well as very unfavorable exchange rate effects.
Against the current, the remote data management company (cloud) Snowflake soared (+ 23.07% to 196.28 dollars) thanks to a turnover better than expected and prospects hailed by the analysts.
Tesla was one of the few Nasdaq giants in the red (-0.35% to 296.07 dollars), during its first session after the division by three of the number of its shares, an operation aimed at lowering their price units and make them more accessible to individual investors. The price thus fell from nearly 900 dollars per unit to just under 300.
The manufacturer of exercise bikes and connected treadmills Peloton fell heavily (-18.32% to 11.01 dollars), after reporting a turnover down 27%, well below expectations , and announced to expect a further decline in its revenues during the current quarter.
The shares of Chinese companies listed in New York paraded Thursday, while an agreement would be close, according to the Wall Street Journal, to allow an American regulator to validate the audit of their accounts. The blockage on this file posed the risk of delisting most of these companies in New York, in particular Alibaba (+7.97%), Pinduoduo (+12.44%) or JD.com (+ 9.20%).
© 2022 AFP
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