NEW YORK (awp international) – Wall Street went on a recovery course on Thursday. After the last few cloudy days, the most important stock indices now rose by a good one percent each. Robust economic data in particular proved to be the driving force.
The Dow Jones Industrial rose 1.21 percent to 34,794.35 points in early trading. The S&P 500 gained 1.25 percent to 4418.49 points. For the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 it went up 1.43 percent to 14,986.61 points.
The situation on the labor market has surprisingly improved significantly. The number of weekly initial applications for unemployment benefits fell below 300,000 for the first time in the Corona crisis. The decline in assistance applications was also surprisingly significant.
Meanwhile, the reporting season for companies is gaining momentum in the past quarter. The health insurer UnitedHealth raised its profit forecast for this year again after a surprisingly good summer quarter. The shares jumped to a record high and most recently soared at the top of the Dow by a good five percent.
The drugstore and pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance recovered significantly from the consequences of the corona pandemic in the final quarter of its 2020/21 financial year. In addition to strong profit growth in pharmacies and retailers in the United States, the group also cited a continued recovery in the UK as reasons. This was enough for a plus of a good one percent.
In addition, following the largest US bank JPMorgan, other important financial institutions have now also reported strong leaps in profits. Bank of America and Wells Fargo also benefited in the third quarter from the reversal of provisions that they had set up in Corona year 2020 with a view to looming loan defaults. Because the economy is recovering from the crisis, and it is foreseeable that not as many loans will fail as had been feared in the meantime. The money houses Morgan Stanley and Citigroup also increased their profits significantly.
Meanwhile, investors were not happy about the numbers. While the shares of Bank of America rose by a good two percent, the shares of the other three banks moved only a little./la/he
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