US Stock Market Slows Down, Tech Sector Remains Strong

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock market lost some of its strength in trading before the weekend. However, the technology sector once again held up well above average.

The Nasdaq 100 Although it came back a little after another high since the beginning of April 2022, it still maintained a plus of 0.6 percent to 14,573 points around two and a half hours before the end of trading.

Significant price gains from Tesla gave lift. In addition, the trend topic of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to play a major role on the market and is pushing shares in this area. Microsoft shares AMD and Salesforce then also put on.

Therefore, the market-wide S&P 500, which is also peppered with many tech stocks, was also missing with plus 0.3 percent to 4305 points, not much up to the price level of April 2022. The growth for the leading index Dow Jones Industrial was somewhat more restrained
from, which increased by 0.1 percent to 33,869 points.

Market participants are already looking ahead to the new week. Then there will be US inflation data and interest rate decisions, both from the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday and from the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday. While investors at the ECB are firmly expecting another interest rate hike, there is a lot to be said for a rate pause at the Fed. Data from the labor market published the day before, for example, indicated a slowdown. However, an interest rate pause is not yet certain, especially since the Australian and Canadian central banks caught the markets on the wrong foot with interest rate hikes this week.

While in North America and the eurozone the still high inflation is keeping central bank interest rates high and thus not alleviating recession worries, the opposite is true in China. According to the latest data, inflation there is very low, so that economists are already fearing deflation, i.e. a decline in the general price level. Deflation is generally considered to be more dangerous for the economy than slightly excessive inflation. Because in a deflationary environment, people are reluctant to buy goods because they expect prices to continue to fall.

Tesla investors were happy about further price gains of 4.7 percent before the weekend. The electric vehicle manufacturer is opening its Supercharger charging network for electric cars from rival General Motors
(GM) . Starting next year, GM customers will have access to around 12,000 Tesla charging stations. Tesla’s charging technology is becoming more and more popular. GM boss Mary Barra spoke of a step that could bring the industry to a uniform charging standard in North America. The partnership with Tesla was also well received by GM investors, with shares gaining 1.3 percent.

The Tesla share price has now doubled with the current year-to-date gain. On the Nasdaq, the papers are among the best values. To the price gain of the titles of the chip manufacturer Nvidia, which were inspired by the AI ​​hype but they don’t come close yet. Nvidia shareholders have had an increase of almost 170 percent since the beginning of the year, and this Friday the shares rose by 1.4 percent.

The shares of the software group Adobe, which had also done well the day before increased by 4.2 percent. Here, too, the topic of artificial intelligence inspires imagination. In addition, the bank Wells Fargo upgraded the title to “Overweight”.

After the course fireworks on the previous day, speculators made shares in the US used car platform Carvana checkout before the weekend. On Thursday, Carvana jumped 56 percent after a surprisingly good business outlook, on Friday it was down 15 percent.

Target lost 2.2 percent after a downgrade by Citigroup . Analysts cited lower traffic at the retailer’s stores and increased competition.

Dish shares collapsed by around ten percent after the presentation of nationwide smartphone tariff plans. The high price gain last Friday, when the papers after speculation about a mobile phone offer by Amazon
is shrinking more and more. Speculators had bet that Dish could work with Amazon on sales. With the current plans, however, Dish is now showing that it wants to sell mobile phone contracts itself, explains analyst Usman Ghazi from the private bank Berenberg. So Dish is probably a long way from throwing itself into the arms of Amazon out of desperation./mis/ajx/men

 ISIN  US2605661048  US6311011026  US78378X1072

AXC0252 2023-06-09/19:55

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