NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – Investors gradually ventured out of cover on Wall Street on Thursday. The gas pipeline that was reactivated in Europe and a significant interest rate hike by the ECB initially provided no clear impetus, nor did the mixed company figures. In the course of time, however, investors gradually became bolder and all major US indices made it clearly into the plus and to a six-week high.
The positive pioneer was the technology-heavy Nasdaq stock exchange, whose selection index NASDAQ 100 recorded a plus of 1.44 percent to 12,619.41 points with tailwind strong Tesla numbers. The S&P 500 followed, up 0.99 percent to 3998.95 points, just missing the 4000 mark. The Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) had to fight for a long time to break even, but ended up with 32,036.90 points, a comfortable plus of 0.51 percent.
The market said investors are continuing to weigh the impact of the latest developments in geospatial and monetary policy on growth and whether a stock market bottom might have been reached. Economic data from the USA sent rather bad signals: In addition to weak weekly labor market data, the index of leading indicators and the business climate in the Philadelphia region fell more than expected.
Tesla’s shares became a major support on the Nasdaq: With a price jump of almost ten percent, they made it back over the 800 dollar mark for the first time since May. In the second quarter, the electric car maker almost doubled its quarterly profit despite the corona lockdowns in China and supply chain problems, exceeding analyst estimates. The company now expects a “record-breaking” second half of the year.
In the Dow, the tech values contained there also became a support in the course of the Nasdaq rally. The papers from Cisco, Apple and Salesforce posted gains of between 1.0 and 1.6 percent. Bigger gains of up to 1.9 percent were seen only at Goldman Sachs and aircraft maker Boeing, whose shares continued their recent recovery rally. They are now up more than 40 percent from their mid-June low.
Otherwise there was little positive to report in the Dow. The oil company Chevron suffered with a discount of 0.8 percent from falling oil prices and the reporting companies also gathered at the bottom of the leading index. These included the non-life insurer Travelers and the chemical group Dow, which lost 0.9 and 2.2 percent respectively. Both reported declining quarterly profits.
Things got really bleak for AT&T investors, who had to accept a 7.6 percent slide in prices after the business figures were presented. A reduced cash flow target was held responsible for this because more and more customers are not paying their telephone bills. The weakness extended to the entire industry, as shown by price losses at Verizon and T-Mobile US of up to 3.1 percent.
For airline shareholders, the fall was big too, with United Airlines stocks plummeting 10.2 percent after the recent travel industry rally. After a long period of losses, the group was back in the black in the second quarter, but analysts had expected more. American Airlines was also not able to convince with its results, as evidenced by a minus of 7.4 percent.
But there were also companies that were able to convince with their business figures. Danaher rose 9.1 percent and Philip Morris 4.2 percent. In both cases it was said that the second quarter exceeded expectations. The tobacco company also referred to a robust outlook for the third quarter.
On the foreign exchange market, the euro picked up some speed with the stock market. Most recently, the price climbed back above the $1.02 mark at $1.0219. The ECB had previously set the reference rate at $1.0199, which is Wednesday’s level.
US government bonds also rose, which was explained by the weak economic data. The 10-year Treasury futures contract rose 1.05 percent to 119.02 points. Your return was 2.88 percent./tih/he
— By Timo Hausdorf, dpa-AFX —