NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The prospect of continued loose US monetary policy on Wall Street in particular pushed the economically sensitive technology stocks up on Thursday. The Nasdaq 100 rose by 0.84 percent to 13,731.24 points. It is gradually approaching its record high from mid-February.
The broad S&P 500 share index, which also includes many tech stocks, hit another record high on Thursday. Just below that, it recently increased by 0.33 percent to 4093.37 points. The Dow Jones Industrial leading index barely moved again with a plus of 0.03 percent to 33,454.80 points.
At their most recent meeting, the representatives of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) confirmed their recently more optimistic view of the US economy. The government’s stimulus packages and loose monetary policy would support consumer spending, according to the minutes of the Fed meeting from March 16-17, published on Wednesday. The Fed members did not hold out the prospect of a change in this monetary policy.
US job market data on Thursday revolved around weekly jobless claims. In the past week, 744,000 initial applications were made. Analysts, on the other hand, had expected an average decrease to 680,000 applications.
There was hardly any price-moving news about companies. Visa shares temporarily turned negative after a report of antitrust investigations. But they quickly recovered and were recently quoted 0.4 percent higher. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in March that the US Department of Justice was investigating the credit card company on suspicion of possible anti-competitive practices. Visa could have prevented merchants from processing debit card payments via cheaper networks, it had already said at the time.
The beverage company Constellation Brands published quarterly figures. The manufacturer of Corona beer wants to invest significantly more in the coming year than analysts had expected on average in their estimates. The share price slipped 3.8 percent.
In addition, analyst comments caused movement: The papers of the chip manufacturer NXP fell by 1.5 percent after the investment bank Morgan Stanley had removed it from its buy list. A buy recommendation from JPMorgan for Fedex, on the other hand, made the logistics share price rise by 1.3 percent.
Among the big tech stocks, Apple, Salesforce and Microsoft gained between 1.2 and 1.8 percent./ajx/he
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