(CercleFinance.com) – After a hesitant start, the New York Stock Exchange managed to head up on Friday, buoyed by the enthusiastic reception given by investors to Netflix’s solid results.
As midday approaches, the Dow Jones rises nearly 0.6% and defends the 33,000 threshold well, at 33,232.4 points, while the Nasdaq regains 1.5% at 11,012.9 points.
Over the week as a whole, the Dow is currently down 3.3% and the Nasdaq is down more than 0.7%.
The strength of Netflix largely contributed to support the technology index after better than expected quarterly results, due in particular to the success of the original series ‘Wednesday’.
The video streaming platform’s stock is up more than 6% as analysts expect the company to continue its favorable momentum this year thanks to the launch of its ad-supported offering.
The other stocks that are part of the GAFAM cohort – i.e. Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta – are also doing fairly well.
Alphabet thus climbed 4% after formalizing the elimination of around 12,000 jobs at Google, its main subsidiary, in anticipation of the coming economic slowdown.
The indicators published in the morning confirmed the rather gloomy picture of the current situation.
Sales of existing homes fell by 1.5% in December, below their levels of May 2020 and even on the lowest since mid-2010, while the impact of the rise in rates is being cruelly felt.
In view of the deterioration of the economic context, some analysts do not hesitate to express their caution regarding the evolution of the American equity markets.
‘We don’t think equity markets are ready for a sustained rally as the Fed continues to tighten monetary policy (with no pivot in sight), economic indicators are deteriorating, earnings forecasts are revised to the decline, that valuations have not yet reached ‘depressed’ levels and that the indices are still part of a downward trend”, warns Mike Gibbs, at Raymond James.
“We remain optimistic about the performance of stock market indices for the next 12 months, but too many contrary elements are likely to slow them down in the short term,” concludes the strategist.
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