NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – On Wall Street, the air is out for the time being. The US benchmark index Dow Jones Industrial fell on Wednesday by 1.06 percent to 30,608.98 points, after having closed for three days with certain fluctuations in the range just below 31,000 points. In general, it has recently been said that the rally on the international stock exchanges has reached its limits for the time being because of the virus that continues to spread
The market-wide S&P 500 dropped 1.55 percent to 3790.08 points. For the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100, it fell 1.57 percent to 13 278.15 points.
The focus was on mixed reactions to quarterly reports in the middle of the week, but also on the persistent distortions in stocks that were previously popular with short speculators. In addition, investors went on the defensive before the interest rate decision of the US Federal Reserve and the quarterly figures of the US stock market heavyweights Apple, Facebook and Tesla, said stockbrokers. Mutations in the coronavirus also made it difficult to contain the pandemic and investors then questioned an economic recovery.
On Wednesday it was now a matter of exploiting good Microsoft figures. The software giant significantly exceeded expectations in the past quarter, mainly thanks to a strong cloud business. This is a welcome surprise for investors, said analyst Raimo Lenschow of Barclays Bank. He sees Microsoft as a kind of mandatory investment in a volatile year. The shares rose by a good 1 percent.
Elsewhere in the recently overheated tech sector, however, investors took profits. As it was said, on Wednesday they were relying on recently below average values. The chip companies AMD and Texas Instruments had given optimistic outlooks, but the shares were down 5.3 and 4.2 percent respectively.
The biggest headlines, however, continued to be made by the roller coaster shares of the troubled computer game retailer Gamestop, which have been exposed to the battle of strength between so-called short speculators and their opponents for days. The latter is said to have recently mobilized in Internet forums, on Wednesday they were still on the lever.
Among the short-sellers as “victims” who bet on falling prices, the name of the hedge fund Melvin Capital was most recently mentioned. According to statements by a manager to the television broadcaster CNBC, it has now completely closed its short positions in Gamestop. The jump in securities is not over for the time being: the paper soared to a record high of $ 380 and was most recently 141 percent in the plus./la/he
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