Boerse Express – New York Stocks: More gains

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – At the end of a strong US stock exchange week, prices on the Nasdaq technology exchange in particular continued to rise on Friday. In doing so, they defied indications that US interest rates would rise even more in the future and the continued lack of progress in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The focus on Friday was also the big day of expiration.

The Nasdaq 100 selection index recently increased by 1.43 percent to 14,320.18 points. In contrast, the gains in the standard value indices were more modest: in the market-wide S&P 500
it was enough for a gain of 0.61 percent to 4438.61 points while the Dow Jones Industrial took some time to shake off his losses. Most recently, the leading index recorded a price increase of 0.19 percent to 34,547.43 points. It is thus heading for a weekly plus of almost five percent after having had the strongest three-day rally since 2020 from Tuesday to Thursday.

At the end of the week, high-ranking representatives of the US Federal Reserve spoke out in favor of a rapid tightening of American monetary policy. The president of the regional central bank of St. Louis, James Bullard, wants to raise the US interest rate to more than three percent this year. Fed Chair Christopher Waller doesn’t like to go quite that far. However, he suggested at least thinking about stronger interest rate hikes. The Fed raised its key interest rate this week for the first time since the end of 2018 in order to curb the high inflation of almost eight percent recently.

Most recently, US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke on the phone about Ukraine. China is Russia’s most important ally, but shows a certain detachment in attacking Ukraine. Xi Jinping appealed to Biden to work together with the People’s Republic for peace in the world. “The crisis in Ukraine is something we don’t want to see,” Xi Jinping said, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV. As permanent members of the UN Security Council and major world economies, both states should also “take on international responsibilities and make efforts for peace and tranquility in the world.”

The American side initially gave no information about the course of the call. On Thursday, Washington again warned China not to support Russia with military equipment in the war against Ukraine. In such a case, the US would not hesitate to impose “costs” on China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, alluding to possible sanctions.

Meanwhile, options and futures on indices and individual stocks are expiring on many stock exchanges on the big expiry day this Friday, in the USA in the last hour of trading. Larger market players often try to influence the prices in the direction they want before the expiry date. This often leads to larger price fluctuations.

In the case of individual values, business figures and analyst comments caused price swings. The logistics group Fedex benefited from the ongoing boom in online orders, but fell short of analysts’ expectations in the most recent financial quarter, despite significantly increased profits and sales. The shares lost five percent.

The shares of Gamestop, which are particularly popular with risk-taking private investors increased by around four and a half percent after initial losses. The video games retailer closed the fourth business quarter with a decline in earnings and thus missed analysts’ expectations. However, sales were higher than forecast.

The shares of the navigation device manufacturer Garmin
increased by a good two percent. They were helped by an upgrade by Bank of America, which now recommends buying./gl/stw

 ISIN  US2605661048  US6311011026  US78378X1072

AXC0344 2022-03-18/19:48

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