NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – After the recovery that ultimately failed in the middle of the week, the US stock markets are likely to make a new comeback attempt on Thursday when they open. The broker IG assessed the Dow Jones Industrial around half an hour before the start of trading 0.38 percent higher to 35,162 points. The day before, the leading US index had also started positively, but had closed with a minus of around one percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 was last expected to gain around 1.0 percent on Thursday after losing more than 1 percent the previous day.
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The indices reacted slightly positively to fresh US economic data. The business climate in the US region of Philadelphia brightened up surprisingly in January. The number of weekly initial jobless claims, a short-term indicator, rose sharply while analysts had expected a slight decline.
Investors continue to focus on the quarterly figures of some US companies, including the insurer Travelers and the airline American Airlines. After the close of trading, the eagerly awaited figures for the Netflix streaming service will be published. On the other hand, concerns about the corona virus are increasingly fading into the background, despite the increasing number of infections in many countries.
“Investors have ticked off the pandemic. They are struggling with other problems such as the impending interest rate hike in the USA, further rising inflation and a smoldering Ukraine conflict, with the potential for a tremor in the financial markets at any time should the situation there escalate militarily.” , noted Jürgen Molnar, capital markets strategist at RoboMarkets.
The US non-life insurer Travelers managed a jump in profits of more than a third in 2021 despite high hurricane and tornado losses. In particular, private equity investments drove the investment result up by more than a third. The Group also benefited from the reversal of claims provisions from previous years. In the fourth quarter, the insurer fared significantly better than analysts had expected on average. Travelers shares gained 4.0 percent premarket.
Despite fresh problems from the fast-spreading omicron virus variant, American Airlines cut its fourth-quarter loss significantly. In the final quarter, sales increased by more than 130 percent compared to the same period last year. The numbers turned out better than expected. The stock reacted pre-market with a price premium of 1.4 percent.
The aluminum producer Alcoa had already reported on its current business development on the evening before the US stock market closed.
Alcoa predicted rising demand but warned that a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine could exacerbate existing supply shortages. Alcoa shares advanced 2.4 percent./edh/jha/
Source: dpa-AFX
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