(CercleFinance.com) – The New York Stock Exchange is trying to recover on Thursday, as Disney’s better-than-expected results reassured investors about the strength of US corporate profits.
At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones advanced 0.5% to 34,130.9 points, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.4% to 11,954.4 points.
While the quarterly results haven’t brought much good news so far, today’s releases have mostly held up positive surprises.
At the top of the Dow Jones, the entertainment giant Disney advanced 2.5% after beating consensus expectations for the past quarter and launching a major reorganization plan aimed at enabling it to reduce its costs.
PepsiCo, for its part, gained 1.6% after reporting better-than-expected quarterly performance and raising the amount of its dividend in the process.
Disappointments are logically sanctioned, Mattel dropping more than 11% after doing less well than expected in the last three months of the year, a strategic period for the toy manufacturer.
Before this Thursday, of the 50% of S&P 500 companies having announced their results, 70% had exceeded Wall Street forecasts, a figure well below the average of 77% reached over the last five years.
The market rebound, which is mainly fueled by stocks related to consumption and technology on Thursday, is also supported by the only economic indicator of the day.
After the spectacular employment figures published last Friday, registrations for unemployment benefits indeed rose again during the week of January 30, to 196,000 against 183,000 the previous week.
These figures point to a slight slowdown in the labor market, which argues for a possible pause in the Federal Reserve’s rate hike cycle.
On the government bond market, the yield on ten-year Treasuries therefore continues to fall to around 2.61%.
By late morning in New York, European markets were also trending upwards, also impacted by the results, with the Euro STOXX 50 index gaining 1% shortly before the close.
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