Stocks New York Closing: Gains – Nasdaq Composite at Record | 11/27/20

NEW YORK (awp international) – The US stock market ended the shortened trading session on Friday with gains after its holiday break. As on Wednesday, investors were particularly happy on the Nasdaq technology exchange: While the Nasdaq 100 selection index ultimately climbed 0.87 percent to 12,258.21 points, the Nasdaq Composite set a new record right from the start.

In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial ended up only gaining 0.13 percent to 29,910.37 points. The leading index thus clearly lagged behind its record of over 30,000 points from Tuesday. After all, it posted an increase in value of around 2.2 percent for the shortened trading week. For the market-wide S&P 500 it rose by 0.24 percent to 3638.35 points on Friday – at times it was not even two points short of its two and a half week old record high.

No trading took place on Thursday on the US stock exchanges due to the Thanksgiving holiday. In addition, the final bell was rung three hours earlier than usual on this Friday. Because many market participants in the USA usually say goodbye to the Thanksgiving celebrations on a long weekend, trading activity remained rather calm.

In the US, too, investors were interested in the latest vaccine news from Europe. The pharmaceutical company Astrazeneca is planning additional studies on its corona vaccine after doubts about the study design and the high effectiveness of the agent had previously arisen. On behalf of the British government, the local supervisory authority will now review the drug.

While AstraZeneca shares in Europe ultimately recovered somewhat from the recent downturn, corona vaccine manufacturer Moderna continued their record hunt on Wall Street: They rose by over 16 percent. The papers of the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its Mainz partner Biontech, whose vaccine candidate also showed a high level of effectiveness, won almost two and almost five percent, respectively.

The shares of the oil companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil fell by about one and one and a half percent, respectively. They followed the US oil prices, which had come back from their recent highs before the meeting of the oil alliance Opec +, and thus continued their recent weakness after the previous price increase.

In view of “Black Friday”, the focus was also on retail. Because of the Corona restrictions, customers are increasingly relocating their purchases to the Internet, which benefits online retailers such as Amazon. Its shares gained only 0.3 percent and thus lagged behind the Nasdaq development.

The euro gained ground and reached its highest level since the beginning of September. Most recently, the common currency in New York cost 1.1953 US dollars. The European Central Bank (ECB) had set the reference rate at 1.1922 (Thursday: 1.1900) dollars and the dollar cost 0.8387 (0.8403) euros. US Treasuries gained somewhat despite the friendly Wall Street: The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note Future) rose shortly before the end of the also shortened trading by 0.08 percent to 138.54 points. The yield on the ten-year bond was 0.85 percent./gl/He

— By Gerold Löhle

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