(CercleFinance.com) – Wall Street evolved without much trend on Thursday, with a Dow Jones weighed down by the latest corporate results, while investors continued to celebrate the speech made yesterday by the Fed.
At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones fell 0.2% to 34,020.5 points, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.9% to 12,158.7 points.
At the sector level, the technology compartment took full advantage of the quarterly performance published yesterday by Meta Platorms, gaining nearly 2.2%.
The former Facebook soared by more than 25% on Thursday after having expressed, on the occasion of the publication of its quarterly results, its intention to significantly reduce its costs and its investments.
Since the start of the year, the Nasdaq has now recovered 12.9%, against an increase of 8% for the S&P 500 index.
Within the Dow Jones, the good performance of technology stocks such as Apple (+3%), Microsoft (+3%) or Intel (+1.9%) is however more than offset by the heavy declines of Merck and Honeywell.
Merck lost more than 3% after releasing better-than-expected quarterly results, but unveiling prospects below market expectations.
As for Honeywell, it yielded 2.4% after presenting a turnover lower than the consensus for its fourth quarter.
Investors are also welcoming the less aggressive approach formulated by the US Federal Reserve yesterday, which could signal an imminent end to the current monetary tightening cycle.
The latest economic statistics have not made it much clearer.
Industrial orders thus rebounded less strongly than expected in December (+1.9%), confirming the current bout of weakness in the manufacturing sector.
Registrations for unemployment benefits fell by 3,000 during the week of January 23, to settle at 183,000 against 186,000 the previous week, according to figures from the Department of Labor.
On the foreign exchange market, the dollar rose above 1.0930 euro, investors not excluding unpleasant surprises on the side of the Fed in view of the uncertainties surrounding the speech of its president Jerome Powell.
The yield on US debt lost ground, below the 3.45% threshold, its lowest level since last September.
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