After starting the week on the hats of wheels to turn around quite abruptly at the end of Tuesday’s session, the New York Stock Exchange began its mid-week session in the green: the Dow Jones (Wall Street) rose by nearly 1 , 7% Wednesday afternoon above 23,000 points, in a more peaceful general atmosphere. The Nasdaq (US Tech 100) follows a similar pace above 8000 points, up 1.5%, and the S&P 500 (US 500) increased by 1.7% to 2703 points.
The good performance of Wall Street does not allow the European stock markets to recover: weighed down by the failure of a first day of Eurogroup negotiations and fairly heavy recession projections, the Paris stock exchange gives up 0.65% to ten minutes from the closing, Frankfurt lost 0.48% and London more than 1%.
Boeing leads the Dow Jones
On the Dow Jones, Boeing leads around 5:15 p.m., up 4.9%. The American aeronautical giant has however announced that the approval of its 737 Max would be postponed to May due to the disruptions linked to the coronavirus.
The other biggest gains came from banking stocks and the oil sector: Goldman Sachs and American Express climbed 3.2% and 1.9% respectively, Visa gained 1.6%. Exxon Mobil and Chevron rebound 0.9%. Finally, Apple is at 1.3%. In contrast, the aerospace group United Technologies has sold nearly 5.9%.
Outside the index, the strongest gains in New York were those of the Nordstrom (+ 11%) and Gap (+ 11.5%) chain stores and the HannesBrands clothing group (+ 8.9% ).
The hotel chain Marriott and the group of travel agencies Expedia rebounded for their part by 7.6% and 6.5%. In contrast, Chinese search engine Baidu contracted 5.4% and Regeneron Pharma corrected 2.3%. The operator AT&T gives up 2.5%.
Holiday Friday, the stock market week ends tomorrow evening. Wall Street will reopen on Monday but most of the Asian and European financial centers will remain closed until Tuesday.
Opec + and unemployment, the catalysts for this weekend
On the New York Stock Exchange, investors are showing wait-and-see optimism ahead of two major events scheduled for tomorrow:
- The outcome of the OPEC + emergency meeting, which is due to start Thursday at 4 p.m. French time, will end the suspense of an agreement of further cuts in oil production;
- The new weekly jobless claims figures – after an increase of nearly 10 million people in two weeks – will also be eagerly awaited. They will be published at 2:30 p.m. The consensus on Wall Street anticipates 5.25 million registrations over this period. More pessimistic, JP Morgan Chase foresees 7 million.
Other files likely to weigh on the prices of the American stock exchange: additional information on the economic stimulus package of the United States in preparation, as well as the outcome of the Eurogroup meeting.
A 10% recession expected for the euro zone in 2020
Interrupted today, the working session must resume tomorrow. After 16 hours of negotiations, the European states have still not managed to agree on common tools to fight against the harmful consequences of the coronavirus on the economy of the euro zone. The question of coronabonds, requested by Italy, is still rejected by the Netherlands.
At yesterday’s meeting, the ECB made it known that a package of 1.5 trillion euros would be needed to counter the effects of the coronavirus on the European economy. According to Reuters sources, Germany, the Netherlands and some northern countries have said they are ready to participate in this effort to the tune of only 500 billion euros. The European Commission for its part said that the euro area’s GDP could fall by 10% this year.
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