NEW YORK (awp international) – The ongoing scrambling about a new economic stimulus package to combat the Corona crisis has caused US investors to be cautious. The most important stock indices closed on Friday after sluggish trading with little change. The focus was also on a number of mixed corporate reports on the past quarter.
The US benchmark index Dow Jones Industrial fell 0.10 percent to 28,335.57 points. On a weekly basis, this results in a loss of 0.95 percent.
The market-wide S&P 500 gained 0.34 percent on Friday to 3465.39 points. The technology-heavy selection index Nasdaq 100 advanced 0.25 percent to 11,692.57 points.
Investors are still waiting for positive signals for another corona aid package. The hope remains that this could be announced before the presidential election in early November. Recently, however, the White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow was rather skeptical.
Meanwhile, there was positive news in the fight against the virus pandemic, because the US drug authority FDA had now approved the drug Remdesivir for the treatment of Covid-19 diseases. In addition, the German company Curevac, listed on the Nasdaq, published positive preclinical data for a vaccine candidate. Its shares rose by around two percent.
Gilead’s shares benefited from the FDA’s move to approve remdesivir for the lung disease Covid-19, up 0.2 percent. So far, the drug has only had an emergency approval.
The Intel papers were the clear loser in the Dow with a minus of 10.6 percent. The chip maker had missed market expectations in its data center business in the past quarter. Meanwhile, the prolonged production problems in combination with an unfavorable product mix are likely to put a considerable strain on the Group’s earnings power in the coming quarters, wrote analyst Ingo Wermann from DZ Bank.
The second weakest value in the US benchmark index was the shares of American Express, which lost 3.6 percent. Lower spending by credit card customers had also weighed on the company in the third quarter.
Mattel’s shares, on the other hand, soared 9.6 percent. Strong “Barbie” and “Hot Wheels” sales had given the toy manufacturer a big leap in profits.
The euro benefited from better than expected economic data from the euro zone and was most recently quoted at 1.1861 US dollars. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at 1.1856 (Thursday: 1.1821) dollars. The dollar cost 0.8435 (0.8460) euros.
Prices on the US bond market turned positive: the futures contract for ten-year US Treasuries (T-Note-Future) rose 0.08 percent to 138.38 points, while the yield on ten-year bonds fell to 0.84 percent. la / he
— By Lutz Alexander, dpa-AFX —
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