NEW YORK (awp international) – The US stock exchanges presented themselves inconsistently and without major fluctuations in early trading on Thursday. While the leading index Dow Jones Industrial fell 0.16 percent to 34,742 points, the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 0.43 percent to 14,907 points. The market-wide S&P 500 stepped on the spot with 4358 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 US benchmark index had wiped out the chart that had been torn by the sharp slump on the stock markets at the beginning of the week in view 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. It was noticeable here that in some cases good news could no longer push prices. Dow’s papers fell 0.9 percent, although 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 situation was similar at the telecommunications group AT&T. After a good second business quarter, the latter had raised the annual targets. However, the share price fell by 0.6 percent.
The papers of the chip manufacturer Texas Instruments came under pressure. According to the quarterly report from the previous evening, they lost 4.4 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.
The biotech group Biogen increased the forecast range for sales this year. The shares rose 0.7 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 1.7 percent./bek/he
– .
