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MARKET REVIEW. Wall Street ended down Thursday after figures showing that the number of Americans registered as unemployed had risen again last week and with the decline of the big names in the technology sector.
The clues
In Toronto, the S&P/TSX lost 152 points, or 0.94%, to 16,018 points.
The composite index S&P 500 on Wall Street dropped 40 points, or 1.23%, to 3,235 points
The Dow Jones, the flagship index of New York City, fell 353 points, or 1.31%, to 26,652 points.
The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, fell 244 points, or 2.29%, to 10,461 points.
The Canadian dollar was near equilibrium (+ 0.06%) at US $ 0.7457.
A barrel of oil fell US $ 0.89, or 2.12%, to US $ 41.01.
Gold was up US $ 18.60, or 1%, to US $ 1,883.70.
The context
Just over 1.4 million new unemployment claims were filed between July 12 and July 18, up from 1.307 million the week before, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department.
This is the first time that weekly registrations have increased since their slow decline that began in early April, a sign that the surge in coronavirus contamination in the country is weighing on the job market.
But for JJ Kinahan, head of market strategy at TD Ameritrade, “the trend continues to be in the right direction” as the number of new applicants remains close to that of the previous week.
“Hopefully this is a flattening of the curve rather than the start of a slump,” adds Kinahan.
Wall Street was also weighted Thursday by the withdrawal of several tech giants.
This was the case with Microsoft (-4.35%), which admittedly reported better-than-expected revenues when its quarterly results were published on Tuesday evening, but which saw its license sales slow and its subsidiary LinkedIn, a famous professional social network, suffer from the weakness of the labor market.
Tesla also fell (-4.98%) after having yet posted profits Tuesday night for the fourth consecutive quarter. Its boss Elon Musk has also announced that the manufacturer of high-end electric vehicles will open its new plant in the United States, in Texas, and reiterated its goal of delivering 500,000 cars by the end of the year. year.
Twitter in shape
Among other values, Twitter climbed 4.06%. The social network suffered a drop in advertising revenue in the second quarter, but reported an impressive increase in its number of daily users.
The group also promised to shed light on the massive hacking that targeted the certified accounts of several American personalities last week.
The airline company American Airlines increased by 3.61%. Struck like its competitors by the fall in air transport since the start of the pandemic, it suffered a net loss of $ 2.07 billion in the second quarter, but burned less cash than expected.
Dow, which manufactures materials and products for industrialists, saw its turnover drop by 24% because of the pandemic and announced that it would cut around 2,190 jobs. Its stock fell 3.43%.
The group of consumer hygiene products Kimberly-Clark (+ 2.10%) improved its revenues in the second quarter thanks to sales of tissues and toilet paper up sharply thanks to containment.
On the bond market, the 10-year US debt rate fell to 0.575 8% around 4:30 p.m. against 0.597 1% Wednesday night.
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