NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The recent good mood on the US stock market continues shortly before Christmas. After the first trading hour on Thursday, the market-wide S&P 500 rose with plus 0.55 percent to 4722 points in the direction of its record high reached four and a half weeks ago. British studies on the Omicron variant provide some relief. They support the theses from South Africa, according to which the mutant of the coronavirus is far more contagious than the delta variant, but leads to hospital much less often.
For the New York leading index Dow Jones Industrial 
it went up another 0.55 percent on Thursday to 35,952 points. His weekly plus is currently 1.7 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 gained on the last trading day of the week so far 0.47 percent on 16,256 meters. In the past two days it had gained even more than the standard values. Overall, it is the third day in a row with profits for the US stock exchanges.
Economic data such as durable goods orders, the University of Michigan consumer confidence and data from the housing market came in better than expected. Good economic data had already fueled the recent recovery on Wall Street the day before. However, many market participants have already closed their books, so the trading session should be quiet. The US stock exchanges will remain closed on Friday, December 24th.
Emergency approvals for pills against Covid provide bright spots in the pandemic. On Wednesday the pharmaceutical company Pfizer had already received the green light for its drug Paxlovid from the US Medicines Agency. This was followed by the emergency approval for the drug Molnupiravor from Merck & Co. Pfizer and Merck had posted price gains the day before, on Thursday their shares fell.
Airlines stocks benefited from the positive Omikron studies and drug approvals against Covid. Associated with this is the hope of fewer travel restrictions, under which tourism and the airlines have so far suffered greatly in the corona pandemic. The courses of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines rose by up to 0.7 percent.
A transaction by Tencent also attracted attention on the US market. The Chinese Internet holding company wants to sell most of its stake in the e-commerce company JD.com. For this purpose, JD shares are to be distributed to Tencent shareholders in the form of a one-time dividend. It remains to be seen whether this is an indicator of further such steps by the holding, wrote the analysts at Barclays. JD.com’s shares, which are listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in New York, lost more than eight percent.
The papers of the construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar expanded their previous day’s profits by two percent at the top of the Dow index and set course for their interim high from last week.
At Tesla, too, investors continued to take hold. The electric carmaker’s shares rose to a two-week high. The day before, Group boss Elon Musk had announced that the goal of selling more than ten percent of his shares in Tesla had been achieved. This now has a liberating effect, the pressure to sell of the past weeks is gone.
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