The United States has ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in the Texan city of Houston, significantly increasing tensions between the two countries. The closure is being made “to protect American intellectual property and private American information,” said a State Department spokeswoman. China’s Foreign Office spokesman Wang Wenbin spoke of an “outrageous and unjustified move”. He called on the US to reverse the decision immediately.
The broader S&P 500 advanced 0.26 percent to 3,266 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 hit the spot with 10,833 points.
The further escalation of US-China relations is dampening the global outlook for the technology industry and trade, commented analyst Edward Moya of the trading house Oanda. Before the quarterly figures from Microsoft and Tesla after the stock market closed on Wednesday, investors are now a little more nervous than before and should remain on the sidelines for the time being.
Once again there was movement in the pharmaceutical sector. The order of hundreds of millions of Covid vaccine doses by the USA brought the papers of the developer Pfizer and the Mainz cooperation partner Biontech price gains of 4.4 and 9.8 percent respectively. Pfizer was clearly at the top of the Dow. Biogen shares, meanwhile, benefited by 0.9 percent from a higher profit target of the biotech company for the current year.
Texas Instruments stocks were down 2.9 percent. Analyst Stacy Rasgon from the analysis company Bernstein praised a strong second quarter for the chip manufacturer, but the statements about the third quarter are cautious. Papers of the counterparty AMD, however, soared by more than 8 percent. The company has announced a new graphics chip.
United Airlines shares lost 3.3 percent. According to boss Scott Kirby, the airline is only likely to achieve a maximum of half of last year’s sales as long as no vaccine against the lung disease Covid-19 is found.
Snap’s stocks were down 6.7 percent. The photo app Snapchat missed its optimistic forecast for the increase in user numbers in the past quarter./bek/he
(AWP)
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