NEW YORK (awp international) – Despite the Ukraine war, Wall Street remained on course for recovery with significant gains on Friday. A hint of hope in the conflict lured bargain hunters to the discounted price level. After technology stocks dominated the day before with their rally, standard stocks were now in greater demand. Despite the further advance of the armed forces to the capital Kiev, Russia was ready for peace negotiations, according to the Kremlin.
After a slow start, the Dow Jones Industrial increased by 2.51 percent to 34,058.75 points at the end of trading. The day before he had already begun to recover after the initial shock of the invasion of Ukraine. From the lowest level in eleven months, it has now increased again by 5.5 percent in a very short time. He almost made up for the previous week’s minus.
The market-wide S&P 500 went up 2.24 percent to 4384.65 points. In the tech sector, which had already risen sharply the day before, there were also gains, but they did not reach the Dow. The Nasdaq 100 index, which is dominated by these companies, closed 1.53 percent higher at 14,189.16 points.
Moscow is ready to send a Russian delegation to the Belarusian capital of Minsk for talks, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “This seems odd given what Putin said this week, but it hasn’t stopped markets from hoping there might be something to it,” said market watcher Michael Hewson of broker CMC Markets.
The Western countries, however, appeared unimpressed by all of this: the EU and Great Britain have now also put Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on their sanctions list. The US government also announced such plans. As a result, any existing assets of the two politicians are frozen.
Among the Dow values, among other things, the financial stocks recovered from their significant losses of the previous day, including the shares of Goldman Sachs with an increase of 2.9 percent. However, some stocks from other sectors, such as healthcare and consumer goods, took the lead in the leading index. The titles of the two conglomerates Johnson & Johnson and 3M were the biggest winners with increases of up to five percent.
However, the little company news mostly met with a very negative response. According to the figures, Foot Locker shareholders had to cope with a price drop of almost 30 percent. A disappointing outlook came from the sporting goods retailer, which has been linked to key partner Nike’s ramped-up direct sales. Foot Locker stocks temporarily fell to their lowest level since May 2020. Nike was only able to moderately follow the recovery rally of the overall market with an increase of 1.2 percent.
Another big loser because of statements on the outlook was the computer company Dell, whose shares sagged by 7.8 percent. According to expert Tim Long from Barclays Bank, earnings per share also fell short of expectations in the fourth quarter. At 9.2 percent, the price losses for the meat substitute manufacturer Beyond Meat were also very large after disappointing figures.
A big winner in the small caps area were the papers of the TV satellite operator Dish Network with a price jump of 11.3 percent. The drivers here were the experts from JPMorgan, who raised their vote by two notches to “Overweight”. The prospects for investors are now better due to the recent weakness in the share price. Analyst Philip Cusick expects positive price drivers that should improve the mood.
The euro recovered from its significant losses from the previous day. Most recently, at 1.1269 US dollars, about one cent more was paid than the daily low. The European Central Bank set the reference rate at 1.1216 (Thursday: 1.1163) dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.8916 (0.8958) euros.
US government bonds were not in demand given the rising risk appetite. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries fell 0.05 percent to 126.41 points. The yield on government bonds with this term reached 1.965 percent./tih/he
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