PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange rose slightly on Friday in early trading, with the hope that a default by the United States on its debt will be avoided.
A few minutes after opening, the Dow gained 63.91 points, or 0.19%, to 33,599.82 points.
The S&P-500, the main benchmark for investors, advanced 0.29% to 4,210.05 points.
The Nasdaq Composite took 0.11%, or 14.587 points, to 12,703.425.
The latter two could well sign their best weekly performance since the end of March, thanks to solid economic statistics, positive corporate results and the progress of discussions between Republicans and Democrats to reach an agreement on the debt ceiling.
“The pressure is falling on this subject, (Kevin) McCarthy, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, again expressed his optimism that a deal can be reached by the end of the week and a vote on a draft could take place the following week,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief strategist at Ameriprise Financial.
Investors will pay close attention to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at an economic forum from 15:00 GMT.
On the value side, Foot Locker plunged 25.34% after its annual sales and profit forecasts were revised downwards due to a sharp drop in demand.
The sporting goods retailer leads in its fall Nike (-4.38%), red lantern of the Dow Jones, Under Armor (-3.15%) and also the German Adidas (-3.75%).
Alphabet is up 1.17% after information from the Wall Street Journal saying that Samsung Electronics was not going to replace Google as the default search engine on its phones with competitor Bing, developed by Microsoft.
(Laetitia Volga, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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