PARIS, Aug 25 (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened higher on Thursday, driven by growth stocks and banks as market attention turns to the annual Federal Reserve (Fed) symposium in Jackson Hole where investors hope to find clues to the path of interest rates.
About fifteen minutes after the first exchanges, the Dow Jones index gained 13.43 points, or 0.04%, to 32,982.66 points and the wider Standard & Poor’s 500 rose by 0.389058% to 4,156, 88 dots.
The Nasdaq Composite took 0.44%, or 54.75 points, to 12,486.28.
The rebound that began on Wednesday, thanks to a rise in energy stocks, after three consecutive sessions of decline in the indices, remains fragile, however, as evidenced by the weakness of the day’s gains.
“Investors are gradually returning to the market on the assumption that much of the bad news has already been priced in,” said Brian Vendig, president of MJP Wealth Advisors.
However, he believes that they will closely examine Jerome Powell’s intervention to determine whether the American central bank will favor the increase in interest rates in its fight against inflation at the expense of economic growth.
Traders are currently overwhelmingly pricing in a 75bp rate hike from the Fed in September with a small minority looking for a limited 50bp hike .
On the economic indicators side, the contraction in the gross domestic product of the United States in the second quarter was a little less significant than initially expected (-0.6% at an annualized rate against -0.9% in the first estimate), according to the second estimate. from the Commerce Department released Thursday.
Unemployment claims in the United States, they fell against all expectations last week, to 243,000.
In values, large technology caps such as Apple (+1%) or Alphabet (+0.95%) are progressing. Tesla, on the other hand, yields 0.46% despite the division by three of the nominal value of its share.
The oil groups Exxon Mobil and Chevron advance respectively by 1.26% and 0.96% in the wake of the rise in crude prices.
The big American banks, like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs take 1.02% and 0.58% respectively.
On the downside, Salesforce fell 7.51% after lowering its annual revenue and profit forecasts on Wednesday evening.
US graphics card maker NVIDIA fell 1.02% as the group said it expected a sharp drop in revenue for the current quarter.