NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock exchanges expanded their strong profits from the previous day on Wednesday. Both the stocks and technology indices closed just below their daily highs. The leading index Dow Jones Industrial rose 0.74 percent to 35,753.89 points. Shortly before the Christmas weekend, however, many market participants are likely to have closed their books. In the shortened trading week, the Dow has gained 1.1 percent so far.
For the market-wide S&P 500, it rose by 1.02 percent to 4696.56 points in the middle of the week. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 gained 1.21 percent to 16,180.14 points. Both indices also benefited from the high price gains in Tesla shares, which, according to CEO Elon Musk, jumped seven and a half percent back over the $ 1,000 mark.
Tesla boss Elon Musk again sold his own shares in the electric car maker, as emerged from a mandatory notification to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At the beginning of November, Musk had voted on Twitter whether he should part with a tenth of his Tesla stake in order to pay more taxes. The majority of Twitter users were in favor. In order to fully meet the commitment, around 3.5 million shares are missing, from which the Tesla boss has yet to part.
However, Musk told the satirical website Babylon Bee on Wednesday that he had now achieved the goal of selling more than ten percent of his Tesla shares. This could be a reason for the strong price increase. The selling pressure should now ease and investors could focus more on fundamentals again, said an analyst.
Pfizer shares reacted to an emergency approval from the US FDA for the corona drug Paxlovid with a plus of a good one percent. The aim is to treat patients aged twelve and over who have tested positive with mild to moderate symptoms and a high risk of the disease getting worse. According to the FDA, it is the first Covid drug in the US to be taken in pill form.
The Pfizer drug and another pill from Merck & Co against Covid are therefore seen as important means of relieving hospitals in the pandemic. It is expected in specialist circles that the Merck pill will also be approved soon. The Merck shares gained 0.8 percent on Wednesday.
Caterpillar benefited at the top of the Dow with plus 1.9 percent from a positive analyst comment. Bernstein Research had upgraded the construction machinery manufacturer’s paper to “Outperform” and raised the price target from $ 200 to $ 240. In the back of the Dow were the titles of the sporting goods manufacturer Nike with minus 0.7 percent, which paid a little tribute to their high growth of more than six percent the day before.
After the market closed in New York, the euro was priced at $ 1.1335. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at 1.1301 (Tuesday: 1.1295) dollars, the dollar cost 0.8849 (0.8854) euros.
US Treasuries posted gains. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note-Future) rose by 0.14 percent to 130.75 points. The yield on ten-year government bonds was 1.46 percent./ajx/he
By Achim Jüngling, dpa-AFX
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