The broker IG estimated the Dow Jones around three quarters of an hour before the start of trading with 0.2 percent plus at 35 563 points. The day before, the US benchmark index had posted a minus of 0.7 percent. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 was last expected on Thursday with an increase of around 0.5 percent.
Fresh quarterly figures from Apple will show whether the iPhone company can continue to get through the global chip bottlenecks, but only after the stock market closes. In the middle of the year, Apple had presented unusually strong figures – with sales and profits that are usually more common in the lucrative Christmas quarters. Apple traditionally has a well-organized supply chain and has so far navigated the bottlenecks without any noticeable problems. The Apple share rose before the market by 0.7 percent.
With the return of patients to the doctor’s office, business at the pharmaceutical multinational Merck & Co is now flourishing again. The third quarter went better for the US group than expected on the market. The Merck papers gained 1.6 percent in the pre-market period.
The construction and raw materials boom in many regions of the world as well as higher sales prices drove US construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar in the past quarter. Sales rose by a quarter and operating profit by more than two thirds. Caterpillar exceeded the experts’ expectations. The shares rose by 1.5 percent before the IPO.
The second largest US automaker, Ford, performed better than expected in the third quarter despite the global chip crisis and raised its profit targets. The share reacted before the trading day with a price jump of 9 percent.
The trading platform Ebay, however, disappointed investors with its quarterly report. The share lost 4.3 percent in pre-market trading. Ebay increased sales by 11 percent in the third quarter. For the Christmas quarter, however, the group promised slower sales growth./edh/mis
(AWP)
–
