NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – On the last trading day of the week, investors also bet on US stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial climbed to another high in the first few minutes of trading on Friday, as did the market-wide S&P 500. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 lagged a little behind with an increase of 0.11 percent to 14 041.91 points, but also marked a record high.
The Dow expanded the winning streak of the past few weeks by a further 0.48 percent to 34,200.67 points. From a weekly perspective, there is a surcharge of a good one percent for the leading index. Since the beginning of the year, the Dow has grown by almost twelve percent. The market-wide S&P 500 advanced by 0.36 percent to 4185.47 points on Friday. The ever-increasing economic activity and the advances in corona vaccinations in the USA are driving the stock exchanges further.
Despite the price rally of the past weeks and months, experts still see upside potential: The Swiss bank UBS raised its target price for the S&P 500 index by the end of the year from 4200 to 4400 points this Friday. “With the economy reopening faster in the coming months, we believe the bull market will continue to stand on solid foundations,” wrote investment chief Mark Haefele.
After two rounds of stimulus from the US government and thanks to continued progress in vaccinations against the corona virus, according to the expert, there is increasing evidence that economic activity in the US is picking up speed again. In addition, the cost pressure on companies is largely only of a temporary nature and can be offset by sales growth.
With a view to the individual stocks, the quarterly reports of companies caused movement. The shares of the banks Morgan Stanley and Bank of New York Mellon came under pressure with losses of 2.8 and 4 percent respectively. Morgan Stanley’s quarterly report also had a flaw, despite strong numbers. A single customer defaulted over $ 900 million in losses. At the Bank of New York Mellon, analysts criticized the profitability of the interest-bearing securities business.
The course of the wealth manager State Street plummeted by seven percent. The forecast of less steep increases in fees in the current second quarter disappointed investors.
By contrast, Alcoa’s papers rose 8.5 percent to their highest level since the end of 2018. At the beginning of the year, the group benefited from rising aluminum prices in the wake of the expected economic recovery, especially in the USA.
Cisco sat at the top of the Dow Jones Index with a gain of 2.3 percent. The analysis house Wolfe Research advised buying the shares of the IT network equipment supplier. In the past few weeks, the two major investment houses Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan had already given Cisco shares a higher rating.
The euro was again stable on Friday, but just missed the jump above the $ 1.20 mark. Most recently in New York it cost $ 1.1981. The European Central Bank had previously set the reference rate at 1.1986 (Thursday: 1.1970) dollars. The dollar had thus cost 0.8343 (0.8354) euros.
US government bonds fell, the unbroken bull market on the US stock market pushed bonds into the background: the futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note Future) fell 0.14 percent to 132.21 points. The yield on ten-year bonds was just under 1.6 percent./bek/he
By Benjamin Krieger, dpa-AFX
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