Taper fears spook stocks, Peter Cardillo, Chief Market Economist, Spartan Capital, LLC
August 20, 2021
Wall Street gains, Nasdaq notches record closing high on full vaccine approval
August 24, 2021The New York Stock Exchange finally ended on a positive note on Friday mainly thanks to stocks in the tech sector, ending a week that remains negative despite everything, overshadowed by the spread of the Delta variant.
According to final results at the close, the Dow Jones index concluded up 0.65% to 35,120.08 points. The technology-intensive Nasdaq gained 1.19% to 14,714.66 points.
The S&P 500 advanced 0.81% to 4,441.67 points.
“I think the market rallied after being oversold, seeking to recoup the week’s losses,” Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities told AFP.
In the first half of the week, the indices retracted, realizing that the US Central Bank (Fed) was planning a decrease in monetary support a little earlier than expected, before the end of the year.
Concerns about the economic impact of the Delta Variant wave and concerns about the environment also weighed on market sentiment.
On Friday “investors began to warm up to the idea that the market had perhaps exaggerated a little on the downward slope,” added the strategist from Spartan Capital.
For Maris Ogg of Tower Bridge Advisors, the session, which had gone in the red before the opening, returned its jacket after comments by a Fed official, Robert Kaplan, on Fox Business.
He said he might “readjust” his views on withdrawing Fed support if the Delta variant slows the recovery.
“I believe the Fed minutes,” released Wednesday and which brought down the stock market, “are old,” dating from the July 28 monetary meeting, according to Maris Ogg.
“There is now a lot of bad economic data that was not true at the time of the meeting,” said the portfolio manager, referring to disappointing retail sales in July.
“This could be an excuse for the Fed not to speed up the schedule” of reducing asset purchases, as the minutes suggested.
Bond rates on 10-year US debt were little changed at 1.25%.
– Tech behind the wheel –
The information technology sector (+ 1.30%) was the engine of the rebound of the eleven sectors of the S&P, followed by utilities (+ 1.22%), and communication services (+0, 96%).
Among the best performers, the title of Microsoft took 2.56% to 304 dollars. Those of Alphabet (Google) and Apple gained more than 1%.
Under pressure the day before, after opening an accident investigation with its Autopilot system, Tesla recovered 1% to $ 680.
Its boss Elon Musk had presented Thursday a project of “Tesla Bot”, a metallic humanoid robot, which will be able to perform repetitive tasks.
Facebook was not shaken (+ 1.20% to 359 dollars) by the new complaint for abuse of dominant position filed by the American competition authority. The social network has also announced the launch of meeting rooms, “workrooms”, in virtual reality.
The title of Foot Locker sportswear stores jumped 7.26% to 58 dollars after the announcement of better-than-expected results. The chain says it benefited from strong demand for sports shoes as well as clothing for women and children during the second quarter.
Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it is investing $ 500 million in cryptocurrencies that it will put on its balance sheet, its co-founder Brian Armstrong said in a tweet.
The platform intends to continue by investing 10% of its profits in digital currencies in the future. Coinbase finished up 3.66% at $ 257.
Bitcoin, up 4.74%, hit $ 48,790, a four-month high.
