NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US jobs report for July caused optimism on Wall Street and the Nasdaq stock exchanges on Friday. Increasingly, the mixed data has been interpreted as suggesting the end of the rate hike cycle may be near. As LBBW analyst Dirk Chlench wrote, a weakening is slowly emerging on the labor market, which is “overdue” given the recent rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve. “Therefore, in our view, the end of the road has been reached for US interest rates,” commented the economist.
The best-known Wall Street index, the Dow Jones Industrial, rose around two hours before the market closed by 0.20 percent to 35,286.29 points, which means that there is currently a moderate loss in the first week of August. The market-wide S&P 500 gained 0.07 percent to 4504.90 points. The tech-heavy select index Nasdaq 100 advanced 0.20 percent to 15,383.30 points. His weekly loss is currently a little more than two percent.
The picture for the labor market in July was mixed. Although it remained robust overall, there were also signs of weakening. The increase in the number of employees fell short of expectations, while the unemployment rate fell. Wage growth remained solid.
On the company side, the quarterly reporting season in the USA is now past its peak. It was particularly strong in the technology sector: almost 90 percent of the companies that have presented their quarterly reports so far have exceeded market estimates, according to calculations by the Bloomberg news agency. However, Gregory Halter, Research Director at Carnegie Investment Counsel, justified the fact that this had not had a lasting effect on prices by saying that the price gains over the course of the year to date have raised valuations to levels that were last seen at a key interest rate of around zero percent.
Among the individual stocks on Friday, the focus was primarily on the tech heavyweights Amazon and Apple. While Apple, the bottom performer in the Dow, fell 3.2 percent, Amazon, one of the top stocks in the Nasdaq selection index, gained 10.5 percent to hit a 12-month high. However, Apple shares last hit a record high in July.
Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan had warned Apple investors were too optimistic the day before the iPhone manufacturer’s figures. His discussions with investors had shown that the expectation prevailed that Apple could surprise positively in the third quarter and possibly raise the outlook. However, such hopes were not fulfilled.
Amazon, on the other hand, raised the bar for its full-year sales target and reported sparkling profits for the current quarter. The online trading giant marked a turning point with the second quarter, wrote UBS analyst Lloyd Wamsley. Analyst Eric Sheridan from Goldman Sachs praised the dynamics of the global online trading business, increasing operational profitability in the North American business and a stabilization in sales growth in the AWS cloud division as the sources for the strong second quarter Other stocks also benefited from the strong AWS cloud business: Microsoft, for example, rose by 1.6 percent and Alphabet gained 0.7 percent.
Amgen rose 6.2 percent in the S&P 100 after the biotech raised its fiscal year guidance to report surprisingly strong quarterly earnings.
Tupperware shot up more than 50 percent at times after the maker of food storage containers reached an agreement with its creditors./ck/he
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AXC0231 2023-08-04/20:20
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2023-08-04 18:20:00
#Equities #York #Modest #gains #mixed #jobs #data
