(New York) The New York Stock Exchange, focused on corporate results, signed Wednesday, with eight consecutive sessions in the green, its longest series of positive days for almost four years.
Awaiting accounts from Tesla and Netflix after the close, the Dow Jones Index gained 0.31% to 35,061.21 points, the technology-heavy NASDAQ gleaned 0.03%, to 14,358.02 points and the S&P 500 advanced 0.24% to 4,565.72 points.
“Equities rise as hopes of a soft landing for the US economy grow and regional banks show signs of stabilizing,” said Edward Moya of Oanda.
Wall Street hadn’t seen eight consecutive positive sessions since September 2019.
The investment bank Goldman Sachs however started the day by offering disappointing quarterly results. Its net profit was down 62% in the second quarter, affected by the lack of merger and acquisition transactions as well as lower activity in asset management.
Its earnings per share amounted to 3.08 dollars for the quarter, against 7.73 dollars a year earlier. Analysts had expected $3.10.
After a bout of weakness at the start of the session, the stock finally climbed 0.97%.
“The trajectory turned when CEO David Solomon showed optimism in the business ahead,” Moya noted.
Regional banks like Ally Financial (+5.40%) and Western Alliance (+7.78%) beat expectations in terms of maintaining deposits, providing heart-warming comfort to the banking sector reeling from the March crisis among regional institutions.
Earnings season is off to a good start so far, with 82% of S&P 500 companies having published their quarterly accounts beating expectations.
But for Maris Ogg of Tower Bridge Advisors, “we will only get a real picture of the situation once we get to the middle of the earnings season”, because, according to her, “companies with good figures announce first, those with bad figures come after”.
However, the analyst remains convinced that “the worst is behind us for the stock market, which probably bottomed out in October”.
Just after the closing, Tesla announced better than expected results.
Earnings per share were 91 cents against 82 cents forecast, or 2.7 billion dollars for the second quarter (+20%) on sales of 24.92 billion dollars.
The action, which concluded with a slight decline of 0.71%, recovered very slightly (+0.21%) in post-closing electronic trading. Elon Musk’s group has not changed its vehicle delivery forecast for the year.
Netflix, also eagerly awaited, revealed after the closing, more new subscribers than expected (+5.89 million) from April to June thanks in particular to its policy of restricting the sharing of passwords between users.
The net profit is also better than projected even if the turnover is not. The title up slightly at closing (+0.59%) dropped more than 5% in electronic trading afterwards.
United Airlines soared 2.65% after the close where the stock ended flat. Its second quarter results were well ahead of expectations and its revenue, to $14.2 billion, jumped more than 17% on a boom in travel demand.
Microsoft, which had reached a new record on Tuesday at 359.49 dollars, representing a market capitalization of 2.7 trillion dollars – the second after Apple – fell 1.23%.
The software giant has announced that it is pushing back the deadline for the acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard to October 18. This additional time is supposed to allow them to overcome the last regulatory obstacles, in particular in the United Kingdom. Activision shares fell 0.58%.
Toronto Stock Exchange
Broad-based strength in the Toronto Stock Exchange, particularly that of its battery metals sector, helped the trading floor’s benchmark index close higher on Wednesday, while major U.S. indexes followed suit.
The Toronto S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 114.60 points to end the session at 20,491.17 points.
In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 109.28 points to 35,061.21 points, while the broader S&P 500 index rose 10.74 points to 4,565.72 points. The NASDAQ Composite Index for its part seized 4.38 points to 14,358.02 points.
In the currency market, the Canadian dollar traded at an average rate of 75.93 cents US, up from 75.82 cents US on Tuesday.
On the New York Commodities Exchange, crude oil prices fell 37 cents US to US$75.29 a barrel, while natural gas fell 3 cents US to US$2.60 per million BTU.
The price of gold remained unchanged at US$1980.80 per ounce and that of copper depreciated by 2 cents US to US$3.81 per pound.
The Canadian Press