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New York (AFP)
Wall Street ended the week in the green Friday, reassured by several developments welcomed by the market regarding the search for a treatment and a vaccine against the coronavirus.
Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 1.44% to 26,075.30 points.
The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, clinched its 27th record of the year, appreciating by 0.66% to 10,617.44 points.
The S&P 500 extended index rose 1.05% to 3,185.04 points.
Over the week as a whole, the Dow Jones rose 0.96%, the Nasdaq 4.02% and the S&P 500 1.76%.
Market players reacted well to an announcement by Gilead Sciences (+ 2.15%) on Friday. US biotech has released new data on remdesivir showing that the antiviral drug reduces the risk of death in severely coronavirus patients by 62% compared to normal care.
In addition, the boss of the German company BioNtech (+ 7.24%) affirmed to the Wall Street Journal that he thought to ask by the end of the year for the approval of the authorities to market a vaccine against the virus , developed in partnership with the American laboratory Pfizer (+ 1.11%).
According to Quincy Krosby, head of market strategy at Prudential, this kind of news “tends to help sectors that would benefit from an environment in which a vaccine would be available”, which would favor economic recovery.
This was notably the case for the major American airlines – Delta Air Lines (+ 5.61%), American Airlines (+ 6.80%) and United Airlines (+ 8.29%) – as well as Norwegian cruise lines Cruise Line (+ 7.89%), Royal Caribbean (+ 9.87%) and Carnival (+ 10.84%).
Carnival, which had to suspend all operations due to the pandemic, also announced Friday that it plans to restart its activity in August in Germany.
The big American banks, which are due to present their quarterly results next week, also had a positive session: Goldman Sachs rose by 4.44%, Wells Fargo by 5.95%, JP Morgan Chase by 5.47%, Citigroup 6.47% and Bank of America 5.49%.
If analysts question the losses from non-repayable loans, other banking activities could prove lucrative.
“Banks are expected to fare well in terms of managing their assets and their lines of investment,” notes Ms. Krosby.
On the bond market, the 10-year rate of American debt rose to 0.6381% around 20.25 GMT, against 0.6135% Thursday evening.
© 2020 AFP
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