NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The Dow Jones Industrial is back on a solid course on Friday after its weakness the day before. With a plus of 0.19 percent to 31,552.25 points, it continued its recovery, which began on Thursday in the course of trading. In the meantime he even rushed up to 31,647 points and thus set another record, but then the tailwind flattened. The Dow is now heading for a weekly plus of 0.3 percent.
On the last trading day of the week, the recent discussion of a return in inflation lost some of its relevance. The recently dominant concerns of a significant rise in interest rates and the associated price losses on the stock market faded into the background after the situation on the bond market had recently eased. Instead, familiar topics such as the corona situation or company news came back into focus.
Other indices lost more momentum. For the broadly defined S&P 500, 3914.23 points were still a plus of 0.01 percent. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100, however, had turned into the red after a friendly start, lastly losing 0.33 percent to 13,592.17 points. Tech values have recently been losing importance among investors, the selection index is already heading for the fourth consecutive day of losses.
Applied Materials, among others, provided good news on Friday. The manufacturer of equipment for the semiconductor industry pleased investors with a robust forecast, as a result of which shares on the Nasdaq 100 top jumped six percent to a new record high. The order books are currently filling up because customers are ramping up their production due to the current shortage of microchips. As a result, the shares of the competitor Lam Research rose by 2.9 percent.
At Deere, too, things are currently running smoothly: The manufacturer of agricultural and construction machinery has raised its forecast and has thus reacted to the better business of customers in the agricultural sector. The shares shot up 10.5 percent to the next high. Here, too, a competitor, Caterpillar, was given wings. Its stocks also remained on the hunt for records, they were the favorite in the Dow with a rise of 5.2 percent.
As far as the Corona crisis is concerned, investors have become bolder again when it comes to the travel industry, which has been particularly hard hit by it. According to Bank of America analyst Geoff Meacham, developments in the fight against the pandemic continue to be encouraging. The case rates fell measurably, and the vaccination offensive in the USA plays a likely role in this, the expert said.
In the hope of a way out of the pandemic, travel data advanced to the big winners on Thursday: The papers of the airlines American, Delta and United advanced by 3.6 to 6.6 percent. Jefferies Research analyst Sandy Morris currently sees bright spots in terms of prospects in the industry. In the event of a recovery, he sees a need to catch up in travel behavior. The pillars for this are vaccinations, test options and health cards.
There was also news on the question of global vaccine distribution. As the White House announced before a meeting of the seven major economic nations (G7) this Friday, US President Joe Biden wants to support the global Covax vaccination initiative with up to four billion US dollars. In the course of this, it became known that the vaccine researcher Novavax wants to supply the initiative with a billion vaccine doses. Its vaccine is still in the final study phases. The Novavax shares rose by 6.6 percent.
The Palantir share, which had recently fluctuated strongly, was noticeable and has now jumped by almost 15 percent. The data analytics specialist has seen its share price slide since the $ 45 record at the end of January, with almost half of the shares having lost since then. On the market it was said that with the entry of the company ARK Invest by star investor Catherine Wood, the company had now received prominent support./tih/he
–
