ROUNDUP / New York Stocks End: Dow runs out of steam at the end of the week

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock markets on the “Witches Sabbath” went into the weekend with moderate losses. At this expiration date for options and futures on stocks and indices, large market participants in particular sometimes try to drive the current prices to the prices at which they are exposed on the futures exchanges.

The Dow Jones Industrial rose to a record high of 30,343 points in early trading, but quickly slipped and turned into the red. Ultimately, the US benchmark index fell 0.41 percent to 30,179.05 points. This resulted in a meager profit of around 0.4 percent for the past week.

The market-wide S&P 500 initially climbed a record high on Friday, but also put it into reverse gear and closed with a minus of 0.35 percent at 3709.41 points. The Nasdaq 100 selection index also hit a high and then went down. The tech-heavy index ended 0.11 percent lower at 12,738.18 points.

Fresh US economic data showed little influence on prices. For example, the United States widened its chronic current account deficit in the third quarter during the Corona crisis. The economic outlook in the USA improved somewhat more strongly than expected in November. The composite index of leading economic indicators rose by 0.6 percent compared to the previous month.

Among the individual stocks, the shares of the semiconductor company Intel were negative. After Apple, according to insiders, the software giant Microsoft also wants to become more independent from the chip manufacturer. Microsoft used technology from the chip designer Arm to work on a processor for servers in data centers, reported the Bloomberg news agency, citing people familiar with the matter. In addition, Microsoft is working on another chip that could be built into some of its “Surface” tablets. Intel’s shares collapsed on the news and ultimately lost 6.3 percent. Microsoft’s papers made up some of their losses and went into the weekend with a minus of 0.4 percent.

The flourishing parcel shipping in the Corona crisis gave the logistics group Fedex an unexpectedly strong quarter. The investors then cashed in – the papers sagged by 5.7 percent. However, the share price has more than doubled since the beginning of July.

The shares of the vaccine manufacturer Moderna lost 2.6 percent. The day before, they had benefited from expectations that an advisory group of the US drug agency FDA would give the green light for the corona vaccine from the US pharmaceutical company. These expectations were confirmed after the market closed. The vote was seen as an important signal for emergency approval of the corona vaccine by the FDA.

After the market closed, Nike provided information on its latest business development. The world’s largest sporting goods manufacturer continues to benefit from booming sales on the Internet in the corona pandemic. In the second fiscal quarter to the end of November, net profit increased by twelve percent. With this, Nike clearly exceeded the expectations of the market; In the course of the year the price has already risen by more than a third.

In US trade, the euro largely maintained its somewhat lower level from European business. Most recently, the rate of the common currency was 1.2246 US dollars. The European Central Bank (ECB) had set the reference rate at 1.2259 (Thursday: 1.2246) US dollars. The dollar had thus cost 0.8157 (0.8166) euros.

Long-term US Treasuries could not hold their initial gains and slipped slightly into the red. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note-Future) recently fell by 0.03 percent to 137.76 points. The yield on the ten-year bond was 0.95 percent./edh/mis

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