NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock exchanges presented themselves in good shape before the weekend. Falling yields in US bond trading and good targets from Asia and Europe helped the Dow Jones Industrial on Friday to rise by 1.17 percent to 33,390.97 points. On a weekly basis, the leading index gained 1.7 percent. There was also solid economic data from China.
Higher surcharges had prevented in the course of the week, above all, the increased interest rates on the capital markets. They threaten to erode corporate profits while making stocks less attractive relative to bonds. On Friday, however, the yield on ten-year US Treasury bonds fell below the four percent mark again, which it had surpassed on Wednesday for the first time since mid-November.
The S&P 500 rose 1.61 percent on Friday to 4045.64 points, breaking through the 4000 mark again. The Nasdaq 100 technology selection index rose even more sharply, rising 2.04 percent to 12,290.81 points. Heavyweights such as Apple, Amazon and Tesla pushed the index up here. The Nasdaq 100 also outperformed the Dow on a weekly basis with an increase of 2.7 percent.
First Solar posted a price increase of six percent to a good 210 US dollars, with which the title of the solar company continued its recent rally. The major Swiss bank UBS upgraded the shares to “buy” and significantly increased the target price to $250.
Surprisingly high quarterly profits made for good mood at the semiconductor company Broadcom: The share certificates increased by 5.7 percent.
The retail chain Costco Wholesale, on the other hand, was not able to convince with mixed business figures, with the price falling by 2.2 percent.
The shares of the electric car manufacturer Tesla recovered with plus 3.6 percent from the pronounced weakness of the previous day. An investor event had disappointed investors’ expectations.
The weakest stocks on the Nasdaq 100 were Zscaler, down 11.1 percent, and Marvell Technologies, down 4.7 percent. At the IT service provider Zscaler, analysts complained about cautious forecasts for billing customers. Chip and memory maker Marvell Technologies has taken higher inventory write-downs, analysts said.
On the foreign exchange market, the euro rose slightly against the US dollar. In late New York trade, the shared currency was trading at $1.0635. The European Central Bank (ECB) had previously set the reference rate at 1.0615. The dollar had thus cost 0.9421 euros.
US Treasury bonds rebounded after losses over the week. The futures contract for ten-year bonds (T-Note Future) rose by 0.53 percent to 110.67 points. In return, the yield on ten-year government bonds fell to 3.96 percent./bek/he
— By Benjamin Krieger, dpa-AFX —
