NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – Different developments are emerging on the US stock exchanges in the middle of the week. More than an hour before the start of trading, the broker IG estimated the leading index Dow Jones Industrial to be slightly in the red at 48,986 points. The day before he had suffered from the collapse in the share price of the insurer UnitedHealth, which is a heavyweight in the index.
The technology-heavy selection index NASDAQ 100 is getting off to a solid start on Wednesday – IG sees it up 0.8 percent at 26,152 points, which means it remains on track for the record it set at the end of October. Here, investors were apparently already handing out advance praise for the business figures of the tech giants Microsoft, Meta (Meta Platforms (ex Facebook)) and Tesla, which were only announced after the close of trading, even if this was not yet noticeable in their pre-market prices. The tech rally is probably not over yet, stated Claudia Panseri from UBS Wealth Management.
The focus will initially be on the figures from some companies, before the interest rate decision by the US Federal Reserve Bank comes to the fore from 8 p.m. Central European Time. It is almost certain on the market that the monetary authorities will not lower their key interest rates any further for the time being.
Investors are particularly interested in the conflict over the independence of the central bank. Most recently, this escalated with the initiation of legal measures against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term of office expires in May. US President Donald Trump has been clearly criticizing this for a long time monetary policy the Fed and wants to nominate a new central bank chief who is committed to lowering key interest rates.
Rick Rieder, top manager at asset manager Blackrock, former central banker Kevin Warsh and Trump’s economic advisor Kevin Hassett are being traded. However, to the surprise of many observers, Trump announced that he would prefer to keep Hassett in his post in the White House.
Telecom giant AT&T is showing signs of price stabilization with a pre-market gain of 2.6 percent after shares recently fell to their lowest level in around a year. For investors, the surprisingly good sales and earnings development last year apparently outweighed the disappointing development of new mobile phone customers. AT&T also surprised positively with its new internet fiber optic connections.
A surprisingly robust outlook for the current quarter gave Texas Instruments a price increase of 7.4 percent. The semiconductor company benefited from the fact that demand for chips for industrial applications and cars appears to be recovering.
The share prices of US industry colleagues such as Micron (Micron Technology), (Micron Technology), Lam Research and KLA (KLA-Tencor) were also boosted by the euphoria over the incoming orders from the Dutch machine manufacturer for the chip industry ASML (ASML NV). The quarterly report from the South Korean chip manufacturer SK hynix was also convincing.
At GE Vernova, the market did not permanently honor the premarket figures – the recently recovered stocks recently fell by 2.2 percent. The energy technology group benefited from the global hunger for energy in the final quarter of 2025 and can look back on bulging order books.
Despite good figures, the shares of the conglomerate Danaher fell by 2.4 percent. The profit-taking of the past few days continued here after the shares reached their highest level in a year./gl/mis
