The Dow climbed 0.84 percent to 34,014 points and passed the next round mark of 34,000 points. The S&P 500 advanced 1.05 percent to 4,168 points. The Nasdaq 100 gained 1.59 percent to 14 024 points and left the record high of Tuesday over 14,000 points behind.
Data from the labor market, the retail sector and leading indicators from regional central banks all published before the starting bell exceeded market expectations. Only industrial production fell short of economists’ forecasts in March.
“The economy of the United States is now almost dangerously strong,” wrote analyst Tobias Basse from Landesbank NordLB, referring to the high retail sales in March. Government aid, the opening up of the economy in many states and the improvement in the US labor market would have boosted consumption considerably.
UnitedHealth stocks led the winners in the Dow, up nearly four percent. The health insurer started the year with a strong profit jump despite the corona pandemic.
Citigroup had earned significantly more at the beginning of the year thanks to booming securities trading and investment banking as well as sharply lower credit risks. In the first quarter, the bank increased profits compared to the same period last year by more than three times to $ 7.9 billion. However, after initial gains, the shares of the financial giant fell by just under one percent.
The quarterly reports from Bank of America and US Bancorp did not go down well. The shares lost more than three percent each. At Bank of America, investment banking performed poorly and therefore worse than at other big banks, said a stockbroker. At US Bancorp, Goldman Sachs analyst Richard Ramsden criticized the revenue. The prices of both stocks had also risen sharply since the beginning of November.
The computer company Dell is parting with its majority stake in the software manufacturer VMware. The companies should be set up independently of one another. The announcement was well received by investors: Dell shares rose by a good seven percent.
Delta Air Lines shares lost 3.2 percent and also weighed on other industry names such as American Airlines and United Airlines. Delta Air Lines’ forecast for sales in the current quarter falls short of investor expectations, said analyst Catherine O’Brien of Goldman Sachs./bek/he
(AWP)
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