Wednesday, April 7th, 2021
Wall Street relies on recovery
Plan for corona breath test inspires Astrotec
The latest US economic data is encouraging. A new corona test also spreads hope, just like the tax plans of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. For crude oil, gold and Bitcoin, however, things are doing rather badly on Wall Street.
Investors are holding back on Wall Street pending US monetary policy hints. The US standard value index Dow Jones was trading little changed on Wednesday evening at 33,446 points, while the S&P 500 closed trading 0.1 percent. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent.
Investors are eagerly awaiting the publication of the Fed minutes of the latest Fed deliberations, said analyst Ricardo Evangelista of the brokerage firm ActivTrades. “These minutes are carefully combed for clues as to whether the Fed believes its own statement that it will not raise rates until at least 2024.” Finally, the latest US economic data suggested that the world’s largest economy is recovering faster than expected.
Plan for corona breath test inspires Astrotec
The US stocks stood out Astrotech with a price increase of almost 40 percent at times. In collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic, the medical technology company wants to test whether the BreathTest-1000 device, which detects cancer by analyzing the breath of test subjects, can also identify corona infections.
Investors also tore over the papers from XL Fleet, the price of which rose by almost 30 percent at its peak. The specialist for the electrification of commercial vehicles is to equip the wind and solar park developer Apex Clean Energy with hybrid vehicles.
The Amazon share gained 1.7 percent. The boss of the online giant, Jeff Bezos, has endorsed the infrastructure program announced by US President Biden – and also the planned increase in corporate tax from 21 to 28 percent for financing purposes. Amazon has been criticized for years because the group pays little or no corporate taxes.
The cruise line’s numbers turned out to be positive Carnival (+1.4 percent). The company reported a higher loss than expected, but burned less money than feared.
Homology Medicines collapsed by almost 23 percent. The genetic engineering expert wants to increase the capital. The money is to be used, among other things, to finance clinical tests and to expand production capacities.
Beyond Meat fell 2.7 percent. Plans to build a production facility in China were unsuccessful.
Oil prices are falling, and gold is also under pressure
On the crude oil market, economic optimism was limited. The US variety WTI fell by half a percent to $ 59 a barrel (159 liters). The surprising surge in US gasoline inventories overshadowed the decline in crude oil, said John Kilduff, partner at investment advisor Again Capital. This shows that the prospects for energy demand are difficult to predict.
gold was also under selling pressure, losing 0.2 percent to $ 1,740 an ounce (31.1 grams). Apparently, some investors shifted their capital because of the ongoing share boom, said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch. Against this background, the shares of gold mining operators Barrick, Gold Fields, AngloGold Ashanti, Sibanye Stillwater and Harmony fell by up to 3.3 percent.
At the same time, further profit-taking depressed the price of Bitcoin to its lowest value in more than a week. The oldest and most important cyber currency fell at times by almost five percent to $ 55,600. The current consolidation is not surprising against the background of the rally of the past few months, said analyst Timo Emden from Emden Research. In the past six months, the Bitcoin rate has more than quintupled.
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