The New York Stock Exchange closed slightly higher on Wednesday after a choppy session, reflecting uncertainties over the pace of China’s economy opening up.
The Dow Jones index rose 0.40% to 33,269.77 points, the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.69% to 10,458.76 points and the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.75% to 3852.97 points.
During the session, the indices fluctuated between red and green. “It’s hard to sustain a recovery, it’s hard to do anything,” commented LBBW’s Karl Haeling in an interview with AFP.
“We remain on hold (…) after a terrible year on all fronts,” said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.
For Karl Haeling, “We will only have an answer to the big questions of the market in a few months, especially to the most important one: What will inflation do?”.
However, at the beginning of the day, both the equity and bond markets showed momentum, which was calmed down in particular by good inflation data in Europe.
Notably, inflation growth in France slowed to 5.9% over the year in December from 6.2% in November.
But as Karl Haeling points out, “most of the drop appears to have come from government subsidies in Germany and France, subsidies that could be lifted in January.”
Hopes of a faster-than-expected resumption of activity in China boosted stocks in the Chinese market, but falling prices for oil and commodities such as copper “stoke fears of still weak Chinese demand in the coming months,” the analyst said.
The release of the minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s last meeting caused the indices to temporarily jump from green to red during the meeting, as it emerged that no member of the monetary committee expects a key interest rate cut in 2023. in the face of much longer than expected inflation.
“Fed minutes lean towards tight monetary policy, but little else was expected. I don’t think we learned much,” said Mr. Haeling.
Analysts at Oxford Economics continue to believe the Fed will hike rates by 25 basis points at its next meeting on February 1st.
In terms of ratings, the stock of the American computer group Salesforce, a member of the Dow Jones, rose 3.58% to $139.60 and was celebrated for announcing the layoff of 10% of its employees, or almost 8,000 people.
The group, which specializes in the sale of management software and cloud computing (remote computing), employs 79,000 people worldwide.
Shares of Wall Street-based Chinese retail giant Alibaba rose 13.07% to $104 after signs Chinese authorities may ease regulations on the tech sector.
Tesla shares, which fell more than 12% after disappointing delivery figures, rebounded 5.12% to $113.64.
Microsoft fell 4.37% to $229.10 after a banking analyst downgraded cloud activity.
The healthcare-focused subsidiary of American conglomerate GE managed a moderately successful IPO on the Nasdaq, marking the first stage in the former industrial giant’s split into three separate companies.
GE HealthCare Technologies, which trades under the symbol GEHC, fell 4.08% to $56 in its first session.
In the bond market, 10-year rates fell to 3.68% from 3.73% the previous day.