ROUNDUP/Equities New York close: Dow shrugs off Fed statements at 6-month high

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) finally put away the mood damper on Thursday due to indications of further rising US interest rates. In the course of trading, the New York leading index climbed to 34,488 points, which is the highest level since mid-December. It closed with an increase of 1.26 percent to 34,408.06 points. On Wednesday, the Dow reacted particularly negatively to the interest rate hikes signaled by the US Federal Reserve for the remainder of the year after the expected pause in June.

The other indices rose similarly strongly on Thursday: The market-wide S&P 500, which had managed a slight plus in the middle of the week, ultimately rose by a further 1.22 percent to 4425.84 points. The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 gained 1.20 percent to 15,185.48 points. After the Fed interest rate decision, it increased its gains a little and has performed best of all three indices since the beginning of the year, while the Dow has been the weakest.

Mixed domestic economic data could slow down the US stock markets just as little as the rate hike the European Central Bank (ECB). The currency guardians euro zone continued their rate hike cycle: As expected, they raised the key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points and announced – similar to the Fed – further hikes.

The left positive traces monetary policy on Thursday in the shares of Chinese technology companies listed in New York. The fact that the Chinese central bank is trying to help the country’s flagging economy by lowering its main interest rate has given Amazon competitor Alibaba a price gain of 3.2 percent. In the Nasdaq 100, PDD Holdings (PDD), JD.com (JDcom) and Baidu (Baiducom) were up as much as 3.4 percent. The industry had already benefited from the reduction in Chinese short-term interest rates on Tuesday.

At the electric car manufacturer Xpeng, investors were able to look forward to further price gains of 7.3 percent on Thursday. The Tesla industry colleague (Tesla) received permission from the relevant authorities in China to introduce its driver assistance technology on its new G6 model in the capital Beijing. Meanwhile, the moderately weakening Tesla stocks paid a little tribute to their price rally of the past week.

Meanwhile, the construction company Lennar presented surprisingly good quarterly figures and expressed more optimism than before about the business prospects for the current year. The shares then climbed to a record high – in the end there was a plus of 4.4 percent.

Manchester United shares rose a further 6.9 percent to $24.81, approaching their interim high of $27.34 in February – at $27.70, the record from August 2018 is just above it. A report on Tuesday provided a boost that Qatari Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al-Thani had prevailed in his courtship of the Premier League football club. Now there have been reports of a possible exclusive agreement between the two sides.

Meanwhile, Mediterranean quick-service restaurant chain CAVA Group had a strong IPO, closing at $43.78 on its first day of trading, nearly doubling its $22 issue price. In the course of trading they had even climbed to $ 47.89.

The euro hit its highest level in over a month at $1.0948 thanks to the ECB rate hike. The ECB set the reference rate at 1.0819 (Wednesday: 1.0809) US dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.9243 (0.9252) euros.

US government bonds extended their initial price gains. The futures contract for ten-year bonds (T-Note Future) rose by 0.58 percent to 113.53 points. In return, the return on the paper fell to 3.72 percent./gl/men

— By Gerold Löhle, dpa-AFX —

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