NEW YORK (awp international) – The positive momentum on the US stock exchanges at the start of the week continued on Tuesday thanks to signs of relaxation in the Ukraine war. A month after Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, there are signs of de-escalation between the two countries. After the most recent negotiations in Istanbul, Russia now wants to significantly reduce its “military activities” near Kyiv and Chernihiv.
The Dow Jones Industrial easily cleared the 35,000 point hurdle right at the start of trading and was up 0.97 percent to 35,294.19 points at the end of trading. The market-wide S&P 500 advanced by 1.23 percent to 4631.60 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 1.68 percent to 15239.32 points, back to where it was around mid-January.
In the Ukraine war, “the next few days could be decisive,” as market analyst Craig Erlam from broker Oanda said. “The signs are promising, which is reflected in the markets today.” A Russian negotiator also hinted at the possibility of a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents. The US Department of Defense, however, was skeptical on Tuesday. The Pentagon sees the Russian announcement as a tactical maneuver and warns of a new military offensive in other parts of the country.
Among the large, significant individual stocks, Apple in particular attracted attention. The iPhone maker’s shares rose 1.9 percent to around $179 and rose for the eleventh day in a row. It has recovered from the four-month low reached in mid-March to such an extent that it is heading towards the record high of $182.94 reached at the beginning of the year.
Otherwise, the main focus was on takeover projects. The health insurer Unitedhealth wants to expand its service business with an acquisition worth billions. The service subsidiary Optum wants to acquire the home care specialist LHC Group for a price of 170 US dollars per LHC share, as announced by Optum and LHC. That corresponds to a total price of almost 5.4 billion dollars. Unitedhealth shares fell 0.5 percent after initial gains. LHC Group rose almost 6 percent to $166.56.
The market research company Nielsen is changing hands with financial investors. A consortium in which the hedge fund Elliott is also involved wants to take over Nielsen for around 16 billion dollars including debt. Nielsen signed a definitive agreement for a cash purchase price of $28 per share. The company’s shares jumped 20.3 percent to $26.72.
Oil prices, which have continued to fall from their high levels, weighed on oil stocks such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips again. However, they recovered noticeably after oil prices left their daily lows and decreased in the course of trading. Chevron were still among the biggest losers in the Dow with minus 1.2 percent. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, at the bottom of the S&P 100, fell 0.5 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively.
The euro fell back below $1.11 in US trading. The common currency closed at $1.1087 on Wall Street. The European Central Bank set the reference rate in Frankfurt in the afternoon at 1.1085 (Monday: 1.0966) dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.9021 (0.9119) euros. On the US bond market, the futures contract for ten-year government bonds (T-Note Future) rose after initial price losses and rose by 0.48 percent to 122.28 points. At the same time, the yield on ten-year government bonds fell to 2.396 percent./ck/he
— By Claudia Müller, dpa-AFX —
–
