Stocks New York: Hope for de-escalation in the Ukraine war gives impetus | news

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The positive momentum on the US stock exchanges at the start of the week continued on Tuesday thanks to signs of relaxation in the Ukraine war. However, the strong initial gains in the default indices crumbled off significantly. A month after Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, there are signs of de-escalation between the two countries. After the most recent negotiations in Istanbul, Russia now wants to significantly reduce its “military activities” near Kyiv and Chernihiv.

The Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) easily jumped the 35,000 point hurdle right at the start of trading and gained 0.52 percent to 35,138.22 points around two hours before the close of trading. The market-wide S&P 500 advanced by 0.81 percent to 4612.65 points. The technology-heavy NASDAQ 100, meanwhile, held up quite strongly with a plus of 1.32 percent to 15,185.72 points and at the start of trading even reached its highest level since the end of January.

In the Ukraine war, “the next few days could be decisive,” as market analyst Craig Erlam from broker Oanda said. “The signs are promising, which is also reflected in the markets today.” For example, a Russian negotiator hinted at the possibility of a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents. According to Ukrainian information, the negotiations currently taking place in Turkey will continue in the evening.

Among the large, significant individual stocks, Apple in particular attracted attention. The iPhone maker’s stock rose 1.4 percent to around $178 for the eleventh day in a row. It has now recovered from the four-month low it reached in mid-March to such an extent that it is heading towards the record high it reached at the beginning of the year. The record high of $182.94 a day earlier is currently less than three percent.

Otherwise, takeover projects were the main focus. The health insurer UnitedHealth wants to expand its service business with an acquisition worth billions. The service subsidiary Optum wants to acquire the LHC Group, which specializes in home care, for a price of 170 US dollars per LHC share, as announced by Optum and LHC on Tuesday. That corresponds to a total price of almost 5.4 billion dollars. Unitedhealth shares fell 0.6 percent after initial gains. LHC Group rose 6.2 percent to $167.04.

The market research company Nielsen changes hands to financial investors. A consortium in which the hedge fund Elliott is also involved wants to take over Nielsen for around 16 billion dollars including debt. Nielsen signed a definitive agreement for a cash purchase price of $28 per share. The company’s shares jumped 21.3 percent to $26.95.

Oil prices, which continued to fall from their high level, again weighed on stocks such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. Chevron again held the “red lantern” in the Dow with minus 1.9 percent. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips were among the biggest losers on the S&P 100, down 1.4 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively./ck/he

–