NEW YORK (DPA-AFX) – The US stock market continued its recovery rally on Wednesday. The sharp losses since mid-January, when US Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell had signaled a first increase in the key interest rate for March in view of the good economic development and high inflation, have now been noticeably curbed again.
Before the US inflation data on Thursday, courageous investors had ventured out of cover again and relied on a “positive surprise,” market analyst Konstantin Oldenburger commented on the gains on the stock exchanges. “At the moment, too high a pace in the turnaround in interest rates seems to have been priced into share prices,” he wrote. There is therefore a lot of potential for a continued stock market recovery. “The trigger for this could be anything that is below the expected increase in US consumer prices in January of 7.3 percent.”
It was also supported by the fact that the sell-off of US government bonds has weakened again. In recent weeks, bonds have come under considerable pressure against the background of an increasing tightening of monetary policy, while their yields have risen sharply.
The leading Dow index (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) closed up 0.86 percent to 35,768.06 points. The S&P 500 index covering the broad market rose by 1.45 percent to 4587.18 points and the NASDAQ 100 technology index even moved up by 2.10 percent to 15 056.96 points.
Facebook’s parent company Meta (Meta Platforms (ex Facebook)) led the technology exchange with a price premium of 5.4 percent on Wednesday. However, it had previously lost about a third of its value in just four trading days. The trigger was that Meta had shocked the success-spoiled investors with falling user numbers in the past week.
The paper from ride-hailing firm Lyft, which released its quarterly report on Monday night, rose 6.8 per cent as the general recovery took hold. However, the fourth quarter was not convincing, because the Omikron wave dampened the passenger numbers. After the stock market closes, Lyft competitor Uber will also provide insights into its books. Its shares were previously up 4.8 per cent.
Walt Disney (Walt Disney) moved to the top of the index in the Dow with an increase of 3.3 percent. The media company will also present its quarterly figures after the close of trading.
The demand for solar shares was primarily due to Enphase Energy’s better-than-expected quarterly report. The company is also planning its first factory in Europe to better meet local demand. Stocks jumped 12.0 percent. Other solar stocks such as First Solar, Sunnova Energy (Sunnova Energy International) and SunPower increased by up to 6.6 percent in the wake of the Enphase share price gains.
The euro was $1.1423 at the close of the Wall Street market. The European Central Bank previously set the reference rate at $ 1.1435 (Tuesday: 1.1408). The dollar thus cost 0.8745 (0.8766) euros.
In the US bond market, the futures contract for ten-year treasuries (T-note futures) recently rose by 0.02 percent to 126.62 points. In return, the yield on ten-year government bonds fell to 1.95 percent. On Tuesday, it had risen to 1.96 percent and had thus reached the level of 2019./ck/he
— By Claudia Müller, dpa-AFX —
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