Nasdaq picks up and Dow barely moves

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – Price gains on the Nasdaq technology exchange and otherwise little movement, this is how the US stock exchanges presented themselves on Thursday. The price gains of tech heavyweights like Microsoft with a record high, Amazon, Apple and Facebook left the Nasdaq 100 by 0.51 percent to 14918 points. It is now back within reach of the record high of 15,000 points.

Der Dow Jones Industrial had a hard time, however, and struggled after initial losses with 0.08 percent to plus at 34,828 meters. The market-wide S&P 500 gained 0.12 percent to 4364 points.

There was a damper from the US labor market: Instead of the expected decline in the number of initial jobless claims, it rose by 51,000 in the past week. However, the number of initial applications has tended to decline since the beginning of the year.

The day before, the Dow had wiped out the price gap that the sharp slump on the stock exchanges at the beginning of the week had torn in the face of economic worries and fears of the rampant delta variant. According to market observers, investors had recently pushed these concerns aside, but the surprising increase in claims for unemployment benefits could now again dampen sentiment with regard to the economic recovery.

With a view to companies, the quarterly reports on Wall Street also set the pace on Thursday. Dow’s stocks rose 1.3 percent and the chemical company is recovering from the pandemic at full speed. The group showed a profit of 1.9 billion US dollars for the past quarter and thus earned significantly more than at the beginning of the year.

The papers of the chip manufacturer Texas Instruments came under pressure. According to the quarterly report from the previous evening, they lost 4.7 percent and weighed on other industry stocks such as Micron Technology, NXP Semiconductors and Analog Devices. Investors disliked Texas Instruments’ outlook for the current third quarter, which indicated a slowdown in growth.

The biotechnology company Biogen raised its forecast for sales this year. The shares then rose 1.7 percent. The pharmaceutical and medical technology group Abbott Laboratories, on the other hand, had significantly lowered its expectations for the current financial year. The papers then lost 1 percent.

The telecommunications provider AT&T increased its annual targets after a good second quarter. The share price initially fell and recently turned slightly into positive territory.

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