Wall Street concludes on the rise after a mixed session

(New York) The New York Stock Exchange closed higher on Monday driven by technology, after a mixed session where Boeing weighed down the Dow Jones following a new incident on its 737 MAX model.

In the red for most of the session, the Dow Jones index finally gained 0.58% to 37,683.01 points. The broader S&P 500 index gained 1.41% to 4763.54 points. The NASDAQ, where technology stocks are concentrated, climbed 2.20% to 14,843.77 points.

The indices had slowed down for the first week of the year following a surge in prices at the end of 2023 which led to nine consecutive weeks of increases for the indices.

But on Monday, investors went “bargain hunting,” which strongly supported the technology.

Thus Nvidia, the star of microprocessors dedicated to AI, jumped 6.43% to $522.53. AMD gained 5.48%.

Amazon advanced 2.66% to $149.10 and Apple, the largest market capitalization, rose 2.42% to $185.56.

For Hugh Johnson, of Hugh Johnson Economics, we have to go back to Friday to see that the employment report was “good news” which delighted the markets even if at first it was “interpreted with confusion”.

Given the high job creation figures (216,000, more than expected), the market’s response was initially to consider these figures as too dynamic compared to the inflation reduction objective, explained the analyst at AFP.

But once downward revisions from previous months are taken into account, “this report indicates that employment continues to slow.”

“You can call this progress, because that’s what the Federal Reserve wants: to create a soft landing with downward pressure on prices,” Johnson continued. “And to a large extent, that’s what we’re seeing.”

Faced with “this good news, investors looked for good deals,” he concluded.

Until late in the session, the Dow Jones was weighed down by the action of the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

This fell by more than 8.03% to 229.01 dollars after the immobilization of dozens of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 following a door torn off during an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday.

The plane, which had just taken off from Portland, Oregon with 171 passengers and six crew members on board, was at an altitude of nearly 5,000 m. There were no casualties.

But in response, the American Federal Civil Aviation Agency (FAA) on Saturday requested the immobilization for inspection of 171 planes of this model, notably affecting companies such as United Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Aeromexico.

This follows a long list of recent setbacks and ongoing inspections for the aircraft manufacturer.

Boeing’s main supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, which makes fuselages, collapsed 10.94%.

Alaska Airlines, which lost more than 3% during the day, ended with a small decline of 0.21%.

Elsewhere on the stock market, oil stocks lost ground as crude oil prices fell more than 3% after Saudi Arabia announced a drop in the price of its barrel.

Chevron dropped 0.60%, Exxon Mobil -1.67%, ConocoPhillips -1.74%.

The American laboratory Johnson & Johnson nibbled 0.25% after announcing its intention to buy the Californian biotech Ambrx for around $2 billion in order to strengthen its position in the treatment of cancer. Ambrx soared 101.54% to $27.47, with J&J offering $28 per share.

The most important indicator of the week will be inflation with the CPI price index for December being released on Thursday.

This “should show a monthly increase of 0.3% in the price index,” estimated Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.

Yields on ten-year Treasury bills fell to 4.00% from 4.04%.