(New York) The New York Stock Exchange was slightly in the green on Monday as it began a new half-year, digesting the results of the elections in France before the publication of employment figures in the United States at the end of the week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.20%, the tech-heavy NASDAQ was up 0.22% and the S&P 500 was up 0.07% as of 10:25 a.m. ET.
On Friday, the indices fell by 0.12% for the Dow Jones, by 0.71% for the NASDAQ and by 0.41% for the S&P 500.
The first six months of the year have seen technology, and particularly the craze for generative artificial intelligence, drive the NASDAQ (+18%), while the broader S&P 500 index has climbed 14.5%, setting 31 records. The Dow Jones has only advanced 3.8% since the start of the year.
On Monday, investors were gauging the prospects of the second round of the legislative elections in France.
“The good performance of the National Rally” in the first round “seems insufficient to give it an absolute majority but the second round of elections scheduled for July 7 will finalize the list of elected officials,” commented Will Compernolle of FHN Financial.
“Stocks in European markets have rallied so far on hopes that a more centrist coalition will prevail,” the analyst continued.
According to the results of the first round of the legislative elections, President Macron’s camp came in third place on Sunday with 20.04% of the vote, behind the New Popular Front (27.99%) and Marine Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, which was well ahead with 33.14% of the vote.
The French elections will be followed on Thursday by the British elections.
In the United States, markets will be closed on this day to observe the national Independence Day holiday.
At the end of this shortened week, investors will watch for the official employment figures for June in the United States on Friday.
Job creation should weaken to 195,000 from 272,000 in May, according to MarketWatch forecasts. The unemployment rate is expected to remain stable at 4%.
The Fed will also be in the news with a speech by Jerome Powell, its chairman, scheduled for Tuesday at the Sintra conference in Portugal organized by the ECB. The president of the New York Fed will also go there on Wednesday while the Monetary Committee will publish the minutes of its previous meeting.
The “minutes” of these meetings are still dissected by the markets to discern the future trajectory of rates.
On the bond market, the ten-year rate climbed to 4.45% against 4.39%.
The euro gained 0.38% against the greenback to 1.0754 dollars.
The ISM indicator of manufacturing activity for June showed a further slowdown in the United States to 48.5% below the expected 49.1%.
On the stock market, aircraft manufacturer Boeing gained 3.71% after announcing the buyout of its subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems.
The transaction is done entirely in shares, at a price of $37.25 per share, valuing Spirit AeroSystems at $4.7 billion. Including Spirit’s debt, the operation is estimated at 8.3 billion.
Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing have been under scrutiny since a door on the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 came loose in mid-flight on Jan. 5.
Spirit Aerosystems shares rose 3.93%.
US asset manager BlackRock has said it will acquire British data provider Preqin for more than $3 billion.
In detail, BlackRock will buy the entirety of Preqin for 2.55 billion pounds, or approximately $3.2 billion. The operation should be finalized by the end of the year.
With this acquisition, Blackrock intends to bring together Preqin’s data and research tools to add to the capabilities of its own platform, Aladdin.
The stock of the pet food distributor Chewy was moving up and down like viral stocks (“meme stocks”).
Up 6% at the open, the stock fell 4% after Roaring Kitty, a trader active in viral stocks like GameStop, told securities regulators it had taken a stake of more than 6% in the company.