Equities New York Outlook: More moderate profit-taking – focus on numbers

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US bad guys are threatened with further profit-taking after the latest record hunt on Tuesday. The selling pressure is likely to be limited: Broker IG estimated the Dow Jones Industrial a good half an hour before the start of trading 0.40 percent lower at 33,943 points and the Nasdaq 100 technology index 0.26 percent lower at 13,872 points. At the beginning of the week, the leading index had already fallen moderately, while the technology-heavy selection index lost more markedly.

A number of business figures received a mixed response in the market. The US non-life insurer Travelers coped with the historically high catastrophe claims in its home country surprisingly well in the first quarter: thanks to the release of loss reserves from previous years, net profit was more than a fifth above the previous year’s level, which, however, hardly allowed the shares to rise in the pre-market period. In addition, the quarterly dividend is to increase by four percent.

The fact that IBM managed to increase sales for the first time in four quarters thanks to the cloud business brought the shares of the IT veteran a pre-market price increase of almost two and a half percent. The drop in profits was also less than feared.

At Procter & Gamble, however, investors had to cope with a price drop of a good half a percent. The consumer goods group also did better than expected at the start of the year, wants to compensate for rising costs with further price increases and has confirmed its annual targets.

United Airlines shares lost over three percent. The airline reported another surprisingly high billion loss.

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shares were almost half a percent cheaper. The pharmaceutical company started the new year with slightly more sales and profits than analysts expected and narrowed its annual targets somewhat.

J&J is meanwhile in focus because of its corona vaccine. The US health authority CDC and the FDA recommended a temporary suspension of vaccinations with this active ingredient a week ago after six cases of cerebral vein thrombosis had been recorded in the US. The US pharmaceutical company then delayed the launch of the vaccine in Europe and suspended all ongoing studies with vaccinations with the active ingredient. This Friday, the US health authority CDC wants to advise on how to proceed.

At Abbott Laboratories, shareholders had to cope with a price loss of a good three percent before the trading day, although the J&J competitor benefited from the booming business with corona tests. However, despite an increase of more than a third, sales fell short of expectations. In addition, according to market participants, the only confirmed annual targets were disappointing, as the quarterly result was better than expected ./gl/jha/

– –