(New York) Wall Street opened slightly higher Wednesday after a checkered session the day before, in a sluggish end-of-year market.
By mid-morning, the Dow Jones index, slightly in the red before the opening on futures contracts, advanced 0.25% and the S&P 500 0.17%. The NASDAQ was hovering around the breakeven at -0.12%.
As of Tuesday, the indices ended on a mixed note, with markets weighing the possible impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, in a session where trading was the lowest of the year. The Dow Jones advanced 0.26% to 36,398.21 points.
The NASDAQ was down 0.56% to 15,781.72 points. The S&P 500, after two consecutive highs, had conceded 0.10% to 4786.35 points.
“During lackluster trading, investors continue to assess the possible impacts of the Omicron variant,” Schwab analysts said.
“Concerns eased somewhat after health authorities (CDC) halved the isolation time and lowered their estimate of the prevalence of Omicron in the country,” they added.
“The market looks like what a holiday market should look like: calm,” said Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com on Wednesday.
“Of course Omicron continues to dominate in the media, but it still shows that the variant mainly causes mild symptoms and the risk of serious illness and hospitalization can be mitigated with current vaccines and booster shots,” he said. stressed the analyst.
“In other words, the influence of this recycled discourse is fading as a market driver.”
Among the few indicators of the day, the goods trade deficit for November climbed to a record $ 97.8 billion (+ 17.5%) on a surge in imports, reflecting strong US demand.
On the real estate side, the promises of home sales in the United States for last month, on the other hand disappointed analysts, falling by 2.2% compared to the previous month. Potential buyers, still numerous, face high prices and a shortage of houses and apartments for sale.
Cruise passengers continued to be mistreated as US health officials said Wednesday they had more infected boats in the sights. Norwegian Cruise lost 2.74%, Carnival 2.68% and Royal Caribbean 1.14%.
Airlines, which had rebounded the day before, fell again like American Airlines (-2.05%), Delta (-1.22%) and United Airlines (-1.34%). Boeing lost most of the ground gained the day before (-1.05% to 203.97 dollars).
Tesla stock, in the green before the opening, fell 0.95% to $ 1,079. His boss Elon Musk converted his last batch of 1.5 million Tesla stock options while selling some 900,000 shares for about $ 1 billion, to cover the taxes associated with those transactions.
Victoria’s Secret, the manufacturer of lingerie, soared 10% to 53.39 dollars after announcing to buy back a volume of its own shares and confirmed its forecasts of the last quarter.
Yields on 10-year Treasuries edged up to 1.52% from 1.48% in a calm market.