(New York) The New York Stock Exchange moved without trend, not far from equilibrium on Thursday for the last session of a good quarter for the Wall Street indices, on the eve of the long Easter weekend.
The Dow Jones lost 0.04% and the NASDAQ was down 0.09% while the S&P 500, after a record the day before, was standing still (+0.02%) around 10:20 a.m. (ET time). East).
US markets will be closed on Friday for the Good Friday holiday.
On Wednesday, the index of thirty star stocks ended with a jump of 1.22% to 39,760.08 points.
The NASDAQ, with its strong technological coloring, came within two points of its last peak, gaining 0.51% to 16,399.52 points.
As for the broader S&P 500 index, it managed to register a 21e record of the year thanks to an increase of 0.86%, to 5248.49 points.
The most representative index of the American market is thus up 10% over the quarter, the best growth since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Dow Jones, with an increase of 5.5% over the first three months of the year, posted its strongest rate of growth since 2021. The NASDAQ was up 9.3%.
In a thin market, the upward revision of US GDP growth in the last quarter of 2023 provoked little reaction.
The expansion of the gross domestic product of the United States was revised slightly upwards, to 3.4% annualized against 3.2% previously announced, according to the latest estimate from the Commerce Department.
The upward revision reflects stronger consumer spending, momentum that has led some analysts like OxfordEconomics’ Ryan Sweet to push the prospect of a rate cut to June instead of May.
In the same vein, a Fed governor, Christopher Waller, estimated Wednesday evening that it was urgent to wait before initiating a reduction in key rates as long as the data relating to inflation do not show “a trajectory sustained” towards the 2% objective.
“We have had a lot of progress in reducing inflation over the past year, but the data over the last two months has been disappointing,” he said.
Consumer confidence measured by the University of Michigan went in the same direction, showing a 3.3% jump to the highest since July 2021 to 79.4 points in March.
On the market, the cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase gained 3% around 10:20 a.m. (Eastern time), while the world of cryptoassets is buzzing with the trial of ex-pope of cryptocurrencies Sam Bankman-Fried. Accused of vast fraud, SBF will receive his sentence on Thursday in federal court in New York.
The online brokerage platform Robinhood gained 1.66%.
The social network Reddit, introduced on Wall Street last week at a price of $34 per share, slipped 4.85%.
The chain of pharmacies and drugstores Walgreens dropped 0.33%. On the one hand, its sales in the second quarter were stronger than expected, but on the other hand the group recorded a loss after a charge of $5.8 billion, to compensate for the devaluation of its purchase of the VillageMD clinics.
AMC cinemas fell by more than 11% while the chain will sell $250 million worth of shares in order to repay debt in particular.
On the bond market, rates were stable at 4.19% for ten-year Treasury bills.
reference: www.lapresse.ca