NEW YORK (awp international) – The general mood in the US stock market remains positive. The leading U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average ended Friday at 38,671.69, down 0.14 percent, but near a record high and almost unchanged for the week overall. Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 set another record, rising 0.57 percent to 5,026.61 points in late trade. Earlier in the day, the index rose above 5,000 points for the first time but closed below it.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 1.01 percent to 17,962.40 on Friday. He has also created another record. Both the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 are now up 1.8 percent and 1.4 percent for the fifth week in a row.
The main drivers of the rally have been overweight tech stocks benefiting from the hype surrounding artificial intelligence. Hopes of rapid cuts in key interest rates, which buoyed equity markets at the end of last year, have now subsided significantly.
Because: The US Federal Reserve doesn't want to cut interest rates too soon, thereby risking inflation rising again. Among other things, the labor market has been strong recently — and that could lead to higher wages, and fuel inflation. At the same time, recent generally good economic data has fueled hopes that the central bank's sharp hike in key interest rates will bring inflation under control without strangling the economy.
Looking at individual stocks, three tech companies — Intel, Microsoft and IBM — topped the Dow Jones – with gains of nearly two percent. On the Nasdaq 100, shares of graphics card and AI chip specialist Nvidia continued their rally with a 3.6 percent gain.
Shares of entertainment giant Walt Disney were the biggest Dow losers, with losses of nearly 1.9 percent. However, short-term investors in particular are likely to cash in here after the share price rallied 11.5 percent following a surprisingly good earnings outlook.
The current reporting season was also a topic of discussion on Friday. Beverages and snacks giant PepsiCo enters the new year with optimism and expects further growth in 2024, but momentum is likely to weaken. Shares fell 3.6 percent.
Online travel agency Expedia has calmed investors with a surprise shakeup at the company's top level. Additionally, some quarterly figures were worse than expected. The papers lost nearly 18 percent. The leadership change could be a sign of a continuing struggle in the battle over the travel booking platform's strategic direction, experts said. Analysts at investment firm Jefferies believe the latest news will dampen confidence in the company's turnaround.
Shares of some rivals also fell on Expedia's rise. Airbnb, Booking Holdings and Tripadvisor shares lost as much as 3.7 percent.
Shares of recently battered New York Community Bancorp jumped nearly 17 percent after it became known that shares were being bought by the financial firm's board of directors and board members. However, looking at the chart, this is nothing more than an initial stabilization attempt after the share price has fallen by around 65 percent since last week. The backdrop for the poor sentiment was primarily an increase in risk allocations for commercial real estate loans.
At the end of trading on Wall Street, the euro traded at $1.0786, slightly higher than the previous day. The European Central Bank fixed the midday (CET) benchmark rate at 1.0772 (Thursday: 1.0758) dollars. So the dollar is worth 0.9283 (0.9295) euros.
In the U.S. bond market, the futures contract for the 10-year note (T-note futures) was down 0.1 percent at 110.67 points. In response, the ten-year government bond yield rose to 4.18 per cent.
