Wall Street, in New York (AFP/ANGELA WEISS)
The New York Stock Exchange ended higher on Thursday, helped by a technical rebound and good momentum in technology stocks, on the eve of a highly anticipated employment report.
The Dow Jones closed up 0.17%, the Nasdaq index gained 1.37% and the broader S&P 500 index gained 0.80%.
“It was a technical rebound more than anything,” commented Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, “with a bit of bargain hunting.”
The S&P 500 thus remained on three negative sessions, a sequence that it had not experienced since the start of its fall ride, which lasted from the end of October to the end of November.
“AMD’s movement has launched the technology sector in general, and tech stocks have taken over,” said Steve Sosnick.
Semiconductor manufacturer AMD (+9.89%) capitalized on the presentation of its new MI300 chip, positioned as a competitor to Nvidia in the generative artificial intelligence market.
The aspiration benefited the other big names in processors, Intel (+2.13%), Qualcomm (+2.29%), and even Nvidia (+2.40%).
The other engine of the new economy was Alphabet (+5.34%), still driven by the launch, on Wednesday, of Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Gemini, seen as a serious competitor to OpenAI. A JPMorgan analyst calls this a “significant innovation.”
Behind, Meta (+2.88%) and Amazon (+1.63%) were celebrated, as was Apple (+1.01%), which closed above the symbolic threshold of 3,000 billion dollars of capitalization.
The session was calm on the bond front, after several eventful days. The yield on American government bonds stood at 4.14%, compared to 4.10% the day before.
“The market does not seem particularly nervous before the employment figures tomorrow and the Fed (American central bank) meeting next week (Tuesday and Wednesday),” observed Steve Sosnick.
The New York market is banking on a monetary status quo at the end of this last meeting of the year and betting on at least five cuts in the Fed’s key rate in 2024.
The Fed’s communication next week will be an opportunity to update its members’ expectations regarding the trajectory of key rates in the short and medium term.
The airline JetBlue surged (+15.22%), after raising its forecasts for the fourth quarter and its entire 2023 financial year. The New York group recorded higher reservations than expected and is also benefiting from the decline kerosene prices.
The news benefited the entire airline sector, such as American Airlines (+3.19%) and Delta Air Lines (+3.60%).
The publisher of artificial intelligence software for businesses C3.ai went against the trend in the sector (-10.77%). The group published a quarterly turnover that was worse than expected on Wednesday after the market and its projections for the current period were disappointing.
The electric truck manufacturer Nikola fell (-23.39%) after revealing an upcoming capital increase and an issue of bonds convertible into shares.
The video game store chain Gamestop, around which a veritable cult has developed since the fever of “meme stocks” (shares massively supported by small holders), jumped 10.24%. The group limited its quarterly losses, more than analysts expected.
© 2023 AFP
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