(New York) The New York Stock Exchange ended higher on Friday, with the technology sector once again standing out thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), before a long weekend in the United States.
The values of the new economy allowed the NASDAQ index (+1.10%) to record a new closing record. The Dow Jones also finished in the green, but close to balance (+0.01%), while the S&P 500 gained 0.70%.
The New York market recorded a convincing rebound after its drop the day before, a jump encouraged by the approach of the long Memorial Day weekend (holiday Monday), a traditionally positive period for stocks, according to Quincy Krosby, analyst from LPL Financial.
“That probably played a role,” confirmed Tom Cahill, analyst at Ventura Wealth Management, for whom “the other positive aspect is Nvidia”.
Wall Street has still not recovered from the stratospheric figures published Wednesday after the stock market by the semiconductor designer.
Nvidia’s famous graphics cards, chips with extraordinary processing capabilities, have become essential to the development of large so-called generative AI interfaces.
“Whether we see it in a positive light or not, artificial intelligence is now an important element of market psychology,” insisted Tom Cahill.
Third largest capitalization in the world, Nvidia (+2.57%) is now falling behind Apple (+1.66%), runner-up to Microsoft (+0.74%) in the ranking.
The Santa Clara (California) group’s competitors also shone on Friday, in particular Intel (+2.13%), Micron (+2.55%), AMD (+3.70%) and Qualcomm (+4. 26%).
The results were more mixed for the Dow Jones, weighed down in particular by the health sector, like the health insurer UnitedHealth (-1.68%) or the Merck laboratory (-1.22%).
The New York market had started the day without enthusiasm, a little scalded by the announcement of a 0.7% increase over one month, in April, in orders for durable goods, while economists were counting on a contraction of 0.8%.
Even if it must be put into perspective due to a significant downward revision for March, the figure depicts, like the PMI activity indicators the day before, an American economy which stubbornly refuses to give in.
But investors softened thanks to a second indicator, the University of Michigan survey, which revealed that consumers only saw inflation at 3.3% in a year, compared to 3.5%. % in the first version of the survey.
For Tom Cahill, the emergence of AI portends improved productivity and cost savings, which could help calm inflation.
On the bond market, the yield on 10-year US government bonds eased slightly, to 4.46% compared to 4.47% the day before at close.
Elsewhere on the stock market, the cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase floundered (+8.59%), the day after a major decision by the American market regulator, the SEC.
The latter authorized several American stock exchanges to list new investment funds (called ETFs) in ether, the second most popular digital currency in the world.
The SEC has not yet given marketing approval to the funds themselves, but this first green light is considered a turning point.
This development also benefited the brokerage site for individuals Robinhood (+6.60%), which integrated cryptocurrencies, as well as the “miner” (which creates ether) Marathon Digital Holdings (+5.63% ).
The high rate environment benefits banks, whose margins are firming, like JPMorgan Chase (+1.92%) or Bank of America (+1.35%).