NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock exchanges dared to make another attempt at recovery on Thursday. On the heavy losses of the past two trading days in the Dow Jones Industrial This was followed by an increase of 1.19 percent to 34 426.20 points. The day before, the US stock market barometer had dropped to an eight-week low and is now around six percent away from the record high at the beginning of November.
The market-wide S&P 500 
advanced on Thursday by 0.66 percent to 4542.65 points. On the Nasdaq, the mood recently turned again: The selection index 100 after a friendly start, fell by 0.21 percent to 15,844.80 points.
In the middle of the week, the first case of infection with the Omikron virus variant in the USA ended a recovery attempt on the ailing US stock exchanges. The downward trend was particularly strong, especially in the last one and a half hours of trading.
“Investors find it difficult to assess the economic consequences of Omikron because the data situation is insufficient,” wrote UBS chief strategist Mark Haefele. Investors apparently expected further turbulence on the stock exchanges.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan analyst Marko Kolanovic argued: According to initial reports, the Omikron variant could be less deadly than its predecessor. This would correspond to findings from the development of viruses in the past. An end to the pandemic could be in sight and high-risk investments such as stocks could benefit from it.
In Dow, Boeing and Salesforce were ahead. The shares of the aircraft manufacturer Boeing gained 4.2 percent and, in addition to the general recovery, also benefited from the fact that China could soon lift the almost three-year take-off and landing ban on the Max 737 model. This emerges from a document on the website of the Chinese authority responsible for civil aviation.
Salesforce rose 3.2 percent after slumped nearly 12 percent the day before, given a slightly more bleak-than-expected outlook for the fourth quarter and first quarter of 2023. A Barclays analyst saw investors’ concerns about the software manufacturer’s business as exaggerated in view of the collapse in prices and advised to use the price weakness as a buying opportunity.
At the bottom of the Dow were Apple’s shares with minus 3.2 percent. The company had informed suppliers about weakening demand for the iPhone13, reported the Bloomberg news agency the previous evening, citing people familiar with the matter. Since the supply of new iPhones is scarce because of the problems in the supply chain, consumers have apparently decided against buying the actually coveted device. This report weighed on sentiment across the tech sector, which was the only one of the S&P 500 industries to give way.
For the shares of the largest US automaker General Motors, which had raised its operating profit target for this year the day before, it was now 4.5 percent up in the S&P 100. The day before, after this news, the shares had been able to hold their own against the weak overall market trend, but the plus of 0.3 percent was quite small.
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