The floor of the New York Stock Exchange (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/SPENCER PLATT)
The New York Stock Exchange moved slightly higher on Friday, shortly after the opening, lacking inspiration due to lack of publications and indicators, at the end of a week which saw it set new records.
Around 2:05 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones gained 0.15%, the Nasdaq index was close to balance (+0.02%) and the broader S&P 500 index gained 0.05%.
“There is no news that is likely to give direction to the market,” observed Quincy Krosby of LPL Financial.
No indicators were on the program, nor were the results of major companies.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones rose, for the first time, above the symbolic threshold of 40,000 points, but stalled at the very end of the session, ending up in the red.
“The market went too high, too fast,” explained Quincy Krosby. “And traditionally, it needs a little reflux to correct those excesses.”
Patrick O’Hare, of Briefing.com, points out that the ratio between the valuations of the S&P 500 and the profit forecasts of the companies that make it up is currently 17% higher than the average of the last ten years.
“It is reasonable to think that progression becomes difficult at these price levels,” said the analyst.
Like stocks, the bond market was calm. The yield on 10-year US government bonds increased slightly, to 4.40%, compared to 4.38% the day before at closing.
Reddit (+14.74%) benefited from the announcement of an agreement with OpenAI. The social network will provide access to content posted by users to develop the start-up’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) models.
AMD advanced (+1.41%) after Microsoft revealed on Thursday that it would offer its customers a remote computing platform (cloud computing) equipped with processors from this Nvidia rival (-0.92%) .
After the surge on Monday and Tuesday, the “meme stocks”, these favorite titles of a community of small shareholders, came back to earth.
The GameStop video game store chain fell by 24.36%, after almost quadrupling in two days, Monday and Tuesday.
The stock suffered from the publication of preliminary quarterly results, which showed a contraction of almost 30% in turnover over one year.
Operators were also tense at the prospect of a significant capital increase, unveiled by GameStop on Friday.
Investors favored the video game publisher Take-Two Interactive (+2.48%), retaining its turnover above expectations in the first quarter and its forecasts also above the consensus.
The market did not hold it against the New York group for having postponed the launch of “Grand Theft Auto VI” until fall 2025, initially planned for Take-Two’s 2025 financial year, which will close at the end of March next year.
The cannabis producer and distributor Canopy Growth continued its rise (+4.00%), favored by the launch, Thursday, by the Biden government, of a procedure aimed at reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous substance.
© 2024 AFP
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