PARIS, March 29 (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened higher on Tuesday, buoyed by signs of progress in talks between Ukraine and Russia after more than four weeks of dispute.
About ten minutes after the first exchanges, the Dow Jones index gained 346.69 points, or 0.99%, to 35,302.58 points and the wider Standard & Poor’s 500 rose by 0.83% to 4,613, 68 dots.
The Nasdaq Composite took 1.21%, or 173.99 points, to 14,528.9.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday, after a meeting in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, that the talks between Moscow and Kyiv had registered their most significant progress to date. At the same time, Russia announced that it would “reduce” its military activity in Kyiv and Chernihiv, while Ukraine offered Moscow to adopt a neutral status in exchange for guarantees for its security.
“These announcements rekindle optimism (in the stock markets) because they show that the two parties are talking to each other and, therefore, that they could achieve a result in the short term,” comments Sam Stovall, investment strategist at CFRA Research.
In values, the oil groups are falling with the fall in the price of crude oil, which is suffering from optimism over the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Chevron and Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, Marathon Oil, Schlumberger and Halliburton lost 2.3% to 4.2%.
The big Wall Street banks, they are advancing in anticipation of a rate hike: Wells Fargo and Bank of America gain 2.7% and 1% respectively, while their sector index takes 1.72%.
Uber grants itself 2.7% after press information on a possible partnership in San Francisco between the VTC giant and Flywheel Technologies on the model of that concluded with New York taxis.
Fedex, for its part, jumped 4.1% after the announcement of the appointment of Raj Subramaniam as managing director to replace the group’s co-founder Fred Smith.