Home » Business » Wall Street opens slightly higher after mixed indicators

Wall Street opens slightly higher after mixed indicators

The Dow Jones starts on a rise of 0.42% to 25,655.85 points.

The New York Stock Exchange was up slightly after the opening on Thursday after unemployment figures reflecting the severe economic impact of the pandemic but suggesting that the situation may begin to improve.

Around 2:10 p.m. GMT, its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 0.42% to 25,655.85 points.

The highly technological Nasdaq glittered 0.28% at 9,439.06 points after starting in the red.

The S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, gained 0.41% to 3,048.51 points.

Wall Street had progressed significantly on Wednesday, driven as it had been since the beginning of the week by the hope of a gradual resumption of activity without major hiccups as the restrictions imposed to stem the Covid-19 pandemic were lifted : the Dow Jones had gained 2.21% and the Nasdaq 0.77%.

But investor enthusiasm cooled a bit on Thursday after new labor market statistics came out.

Just over 2.12 million people were unemployed again for the first time in the past week, and in total more than 41 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in two months.

But the total number of unemployed people receiving unemployment benefits in the United States also fell during the week of May 10 to 16 for the first time since the start of the crisis, with just over 21 million people receiving unemployment benefits compared to 24 .9 million the previous week.

“This decline may reflect the return of some people to work as the states begin to reopen their economy,” said Christopher Low, economist at FHN Financial.

Trump targets Twitter

Durable goods orders fell 17.2% in April, their second straight month of a sharp decline as activity in connection with containment measures stopped. But this figure is a little less bad than expected by analysts.

The promises of home sales in the United States for their part fell by 21.8% in April over a month, a much more significant drop than the decline of 4.8% anticipated by analysts.

Tensions between China and the United States also remained on the radar of investors to the extent that they could again severely disrupt trade relations between the two leading world economic powers.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the United States’ decision to revoke the special status granted to Hong Kong on Wednesday due to the erosion of freedoms in the former British colony was “barbaric”.

The heads of diplomacy of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia for their part accused Beijing on Thursday of violating its international obligations after the adoption by the Chinese Parliament of a controversial provision on the security in Hong Kong in response to protests last year.

Twitter fell 2.41% as US President Donald Trump, singled out by the group for “misleading” messages, must sign a decree on Thursday that, according to the American press, should make social networks responsible for content posted by the users. Facebook lost 0.46%.

Abercrombie & Fitch clothing chain fell 7.20% after reporting disappointing first quarter results, including 34% decline in sales.

The American Airlines, which announced the abolition of 30% of the jobs of executives and also envisages a reduction of the aerofoil in the ranks of the pilots and the cabin crew, lost 3.50%.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the American debt rose a little, moving to 0.6884% against 0.6819% Wednesday evening.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.