PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange moved up slightly on Friday at the start of the last session of 2021, with Wall Street preparing to celebrate the end of a third consecutive year of rise thanks to the support of monetary policies and Washington’s budget and the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines.
A few minutes after the start of trading, the Dow Jones index gained 38.34 points, or 0.11%, to 36,436.42, the Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.13% to 4,784.82 and the Nasdaq Composite took 0.13% to 15,762.78.
The Dow Jones and the S & P-500 both hit all-time highs on Thursday, enjoying relief from early data suggesting the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is less virulent than the Delta. Caution in the face of the proliferation of new sanitary measures, however, weighs on the trend.
The Nasdaq is evolving less than 3% of its record of November 22 (16,212,229 points).
For the moment, it shows an increase of 22.7% over the whole year, against + 19% for the Dow Jones and + 27.4% for the S & P-500, driven among other things by the values of the energy (+ 47.4%), real estate (+ 44%) and high technologies (+ 34%).
Values, Tesla regained 0.79% after giving up 1.46% Thursday in reaction to the recall of nearly 500,000 cars likely to have a safety defect.
Xilinx takes 0.05% while AMD takes 1.97%; the two semiconductor manufacturers have postponed the finalization of their merger until the first quarter of 2022, initially scheduled for this Friday at the latest, for lack of having obtained all the necessary regulatory authorizations in time.
(Written by Marc Angrand)
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