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NEW YORK (awp international) – The US stock markets did not take a clear direction in the middle of the week. While the standard stocks on Wall Street were mostly moderately in the red, the technology stocks on the Nasdaq continued on their successful course. However, the profits crumbled here recently. Some fresh inflation and economic data had a slightly positive impact on the indices.
The Dow Jones Industrial was unable to hold onto its slight early gains and turned down. Most recently, the leading US index was 0.23 percent lower at 33,831.39 points after falling by more than one percent on Tuesday. The market-wide S&P 500 gained 0.13 percent on Wednesday to 3996.00 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 0.06 percent to 11,564.54 points
The increase in producer prices weakened in December for the sixth time in a row and also more sharply than expected. In addition, retail sales fell surprisingly sharply in December. Industrial production fell much more sharply in December than economists had forecast. The central bank’s economic report (“Beige Book”) is still on the agenda for late trading.
Thanks to a pleasing year-end, United Airlines shares rose by 1.1 percent and thus continued their rapid rise since the beginning of the new year (plus 36 percent). Thanks to the recovery in travel traffic, the airline again made a significant profit in the past quarter and increased revenues by a good half. The figures clearly exceeded the analysts’ average forecasts. The fact that the airline intends to more than quadruple adjusted earnings per share in 2023 was also well received by the market.
Microsoft’s shares reacted to the news of job cuts by the software giant with a minus of 0.3 percent. In view of the difficult market conditions, the Group plans to lay off around 10,000 employees by the end of the third quarter of 2022/23. That’s about five percent of the workforce. These and other measures incurred expenses of $1.2 billion in the second fiscal quarter.
The biotech company Moderna scored with the approval for an RSV vaccine for adults over 60 years of age, which it was aiming for in the first half of the year. The vaccine has shown “promising results” in the phase III study required for approval, it said. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes respiratory disease. Moderna, the Nasdaq 100 leader, surged 6.3 percent.
Charles Schwab’s shares fell 4.1 percent. The financial services provider fell short of analysts’ average estimates despite significant earnings growth in the fourth quarter.
IBM’s shares lost 1.4 percent after a negative analyst comment, making them one of the weakest Dow stocks. The investment bank Morgan Stanley had downgraded the titles of the computer group./edh/mis
