Wall Street closes its best week in 2 months with records

The New York Stock Exchange closed this Friday on a highly positive note, signing, with records, its best week in two months, helped by the prospect of a massive US economic support plan.

According to final results, the Dow Jones advanced 0.30% to 31,148.24 points. The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, advanced 0.57% to 13,856.30 points, a new record after that of the day before. The S&P 500 gained 0.39% to also hit a new high at 3,886.83 points. The market “was very excited about the stimulus that could be quickly adopted,” commented Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities. “Looks like the Biden plan is going to be approved,” he added as the massive $ 1.9 trillion backing could be passed through a simple vote procedure in Congress to bypass the Republican opposition and save time on vote. President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to “act quickly” in the face of “the pain of the country”, whose economy has been devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Markets also digested a mixed employment report for January. The unemployment rate has certainly fallen to 6.3%, but for technical reasons, while modest job creations (+49,000) have returned after sharp downward revisions for the previous months. “It wasn’t a very good job report, but not really bad either,” observed Peter Cardillo. “There are still a lot of people without jobs and this gives more cards to Democrats” to pass the stimulus in Congress, said the analyst.

Dow Jones on the rise

Ten of eleven S&P sectors finished higher, led by materials, communications services and energy. Over the week, the Dow Jones is up 3.89%, the Nasdaq 6% and the S&P 500, more representative of the entire US market, 4.65%, the strongest increases since November.

Among the shares of the day, the title of connected exercise bikes Peloton lost almost 6% despite good results. The group also reported problems with stocks and delivery delays of its ultra-popular devices with the pandemic. Novavax and Johnson and Johnson, which have requested authorization for their vaccines in the United States, rose 3.30% and 1.52% respectively. GameStop, at the center of a speculative surge last week, picked up a little momentum after several contrasting sessions (+ 19.20%). In the bond market, the 10-year yield on Treasuries gained ground to 1.1687% from 1.1392%, the highest since March.