(New York) The New York Stock Exchange was moving up on Wednesday after multiple indicators and before the minutes of the last Fed meeting, at the start of a sluggish session on the eve of Thanksgiving.
The Dow Jones index advanced 0.25%, the tech-heavy NASDAQ climbed 1.03% and the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.57% around 10:40 a.m.
The day before, the Dow Jones had finished up 1.18% at 34,098.10 points, the NASDAQ had gained 1.36% at 11,174.41 points as well as the S&P 500 at 4003.58 points, crossing the mark of 4000 points for the first time since September.
“It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, which means a lot of market participants are probably not going to participate,” summarized Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com. Too little trading in the market can also lead to high volatility, the analyst warned.
However, the day was loaded with indicators with the announcement of solid orders for durable goods (+1% in October), mainly driven by the transport sector.
On the jobs front, weekly jobless claims accelerated more than expected last week, to 240,000, their highest level since August, showing that the labor market is cooling, as the Fed wants to slow down inflation.
Consumer confidence fell in November compared to the previous month, however in lower proportions than expected by analysts, according to the final estimate from the University of Michigan.
The index stood at 56.8 points. This represents a decline of 5.2% compared to October and above all a drop of 15.7% over one year.
The real estate market, for its part, came as a good surprise, posting an unexpected 7.5% increase in October in new home sales.
Finally, the Markit index of manufacturing activity for November in the United States registered for its part, much weaker than expected, at 47.6, a contraction.
In the middle of the session, investors would also wait for the publication of the “minutes” of the Federal Reserve’s monetary meeting on November 2, where a fourth rate hike of 75 basis points had been decided.
But for Patrick O’Hare, “the minutes of this last meeting should only matter in name”.
“We already know that many Fed officials have spoken since the meeting and they have unanimously insisted that the Fed is not done with raising rates and that it will consider in future meetings when to slow them down,” the analyst added.
On the stock market, the American manufacturer of personal computers and printers HP yielded 0.48% after announcing the day before that it would lay off between 4,000 and 6,000 employees by 2025, becoming the latest technology group to launch. a social plan this fall.
The company currently has approximately 61,000 employees.
The agricultural machinery manufacturer Deere soared 7.22% to 446 dollars after quarterly results that surprised on the rise.
The title of Apple did not suffer (+0.84%) from the demonstrations in the largest iPhone factory in the world, owned by Taiwanese Foxconn and subject to anti-COVID-19 confinement.
The huge industrial site, nicknamed “iPhone City”, which generally employs some 200,000 people, is located in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province (central China).
The title of Tesla gained almost 6% to 180 dollars around 10:30 a.m., boosted by several favorable notes from analysts.
The rate on ten-year Treasury bonds fell to 3.71% against 3.75% the day before. The dollar was also retreating.