Wall street
US stock exchanges: job data and quarterly numbers drive the Dow
The Bank of America logo can be seen on the facade of a building in Los Angeles. After the largest US bank JPMorgan, other important financial institutions – including Bank of America – have reported strong leaps in profits. Photo: Uli Deck / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
After a disappointing week, the US stock exchanges are back in positive territory. The developments on the labor market make investors positive, and there are fewer loan defaults than feared.
Encouraging company figures and robust economic data put the Dow Jones Industrial on a recovery course on Thursday. Like all other highly regarded indices, the Dow closed significantly in the black. The situation on the labor market has surprisingly improved significantly.
The number of weekly initial jobless claims fell below 300,000 for the first time in the Corona crisis. After the last few cloudy days, the leading index Dow rose by 1.56 percent to 34,912.56 points. The S&P 500 gained 1.71 percent to 4438.26 points. For the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 it went up 1.88 percent to 15,052.42 points.
With a view to individual companies, the health insurer UnitedHealth raised its profit forecast for this year again after a surprisingly good summer quarter. The shares jumped to a record high and in the end rose by a good four percent.
The drugstore and pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance had recovered significantly from the consequences of the corona pandemic in the final quarter of its 2020/21 financial year. After a subdued start, the papers ultimately soared 7.4 percent and thus took the lead in the Dow. The stock exchange traders justified the clear upward surge in late trading with the fact that the management emphasized the company’s long-term growth prospects in the conference call after the quarterly figures were announced.
In addition, after the largest US bank JPMorgan, other important financial institutions had also reported strong leaps in profits. Bank of America and Wells Fargo also benefited in the third quarter from the reversal of provisions that they had set up in Corona year 2020 with a view to looming loan defaults. Because the economy is recovering from the crisis, and it is foreseeable that not as many loans will default as had been feared in the meantime. The money houses Morgan Stanley and Citigroup also increased their profits significantly.
Nonetheless, the reaction from investors was mixed. While Bank of America’s shares rose 4.5 percent and Morgan Stanley’s 2.5 percent, Citigroup’s shares rose by just 0.8 percent. Wells Fargo shares fell 1.6 percent. This bank saw its earnings decline. In addition, the scandal about bogus account openings once again had a negative impact on the books.
Outside the reporting season, Boeing’s shares fell by around two percent at the Dow end. The series of problems with the Pannenjet 787 “Dreamliner” does not end. Now a supplier announced that some components were not manufactured correctly.
Macy’s shares rose nearly three percent. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the activist investor Jana Partners has joined the department store chain. He demands that Macy’s separate from its online activities in order to reveal hidden values.
The euro benefited somewhat from broad-based US dollar weakness and was most recently trading at $ 1.1598. The European Central Bank had previously set the reference rate at 1.1602 (Wednesday: 1.1562) dollars. The dollar cost 0.8619 (0.8649) euros.
On the US bond market, the futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note-Future) tied on its previous day’s gains and rose by 0.21 percent to 131.50 points. Ten-year paper yielded 1.52 percent, which is a little further below the five-month high that was reached this week at 1.63 percent.