(New York) The New York Stock Exchange finished higher on Wednesday, with investors betting that the traditional end-of-year acceleration will take place, despite the Omicron variant.
The Dow Jones gained 0.74% to 35,753.89 points, the technology-heavy NASDAQ index, 1.18% to 15,521.89 points, and the broader S&P 500 index, 1.02% to 4696.56 points.
Toronto’s S & P / TSX Composite Index gained 145.18 points to 21,070.05 points.
“We have said so much that there will be an end-of-year“ rally ”(series of increases for the indices), it’s a bit of a broker’s tradition,” commented Gregori Volokhine, president of Meeschaert Financial Services.
“Now there are also reasons,” he continued. “The main one is that all the signs we have are that the risk that Omicron is as serious as Delta or that the previous strains of COVID-19 are receding.”
Mr. Volokhine illustrated his point by taking the example of airlines, from Delta Air lines (+1.58%) to United Airlines (+1.46%), which have advanced despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.
The same goes for cruise passengers, a priori on the front line in the face of the Omicron risk, as shown by the recent cruise of a Royal Caribbean ship, of which at least 48 passengers tested positive for coronavirus at the end of the trip, Saturday.
Still, Royal Caribbean (+ 3.79%), Carnival (+ 3.46%) or Norwegian (+ 1.94%) were all featured on Wednesday. All three returned to their pre-identification level with Omicron at the end of November.
On Monday, Carnival CEO Arnold Donald said the group plans to return to profitability in the second half of 2022. He also announced that Carnival had started to generate net cash again in November.
Another sign of the beginning of investor enthusiasm, the VIX index, which measures volatility, fell by 11%, close to its level before the arrival of Omicron.
At the other end of the Omicron spectrum, Pfizer capitalized (+ 1.2% to $ 59.55) on the emergency authorization of its COVID-19 pill by the United States Medicines Agency (FDA).
On the new economy side, Alibaba drank the cup (-4.20% to 117.81 dollars), while the Chinese authorities on Wednesday suspended a partnership with the remote computing subsidiary (cloud) of the conglomerate, according to related media of the government.
The group is being sanctioned for its supposed mismanagement of the flaw linked to a computer code module called Log4j, which has placed a large number of companies and governments in a situation of vulnerability to a cyber attack.
Not a day without Tesla news. In an interview with satirical site Babylon Bee, co-founder and CEO Elon Musk said he had “roughly” sold 10% of his Tesla titles in recent months, as he had publicly promised.
Leaked in recent weeks, the stock rallied on Wednesday (+ 7.49% to $ 1,008.87), which once again propelled Tesla beyond $ 1 trillion in market capitalization.
As for the chain of used car dealers CarMax it fell (-6.66% to 127.87 dollars), although having published, before market, a turnover and a net profit higher than expectations.
In the bond market, yields eased. The benchmark 10-year US government bond rate was 1.45%, down from 1.48% the day before.
The strength of this end-of-year acceleration on the equity markets could be put to the test Thursday by a series of macroeconomic indicators, in particular the PCE index, the inflation barometer most closely monitored by the American central bank (Fed ).
with The Canadian Press