NEW YORK (awp international) – The US stock exchanges started with profits on Monday after the mixed weekly close. The leading index Dow Jones Industrial increased in early trading by 0.87 percent to 33,090 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 was up 0.60 percent to 13,391 points. The market-wide S&P 500 gained 0.99 percent to 4186 points.
After the surprisingly strong US labor market report on Friday, at least the Dow defied the fear of interest rates rising too quickly among the most important indices. On Wednesday, the debate about the future course of the US Federal Reserve to combat high inflation should pick up speed again. Then the consumer price data for July will be released. In June, inflation in the US rose to 9.1 percent, the highest level in over 40 years.
Higher interest rates make equities look worse than other forms of investment, such as bonds, and make borrowing more expensive, which can slow economic growth. For now, however, investors are confident that the Fed can keep inflation in check without plunging the US into a deep recession.
Among the individual stocks in the Dow, the shares of the bank JPMorgan with plus three percent started to break out of their sideways movement of the past few weeks.
As speculated last week, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer wants to strengthen its rare hematology business with the multi-billion acquisition of Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT). GBT’s shares soared around 39 percent after already jumping on Thursday and Friday. Pfizer lost 1.3 percent at the start of the week.
For the papers of the graphics chip specialist Nvidia, it went downhill by five and a half percent after key data and disappointing sales. Palantir’s outlook was also not well received by investors. The papers of the data analysis company fell by around twelve percent. At the pharmaceutical company Biontech, business in the second quarter was worse than expected, with shares losing more than seven percent. First Solar gained nearly 14 percent after a JPMorgan upgrade.
Avalara shares fell 2.3 percent to $91.95. The investment company Vista Equity, which specializes in business software, wants to take over the company, but the offer of USD 93.50 per share apparently did not convince investors. In addition, the sales generated in the second quarter were disappointing./ajx/he
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