Wall Street closed in the green on Friday after a week of fears of recession, trade conflict and geopolitical tensions. The optimism of the day was fueled by the rise in bond yields (after a new pressure shot on Thursday), and by good economic indicators in the United States. Investors are also hoping for central bank intervention to counter the risk of a recession.
At closing, the Dow Jones advance of 1.20% to 25.887 points and the S & P 500 of 1.44% to 2.889 points. The Nasdaq rebounded on its side of 1.67% to 7.896 points. The three indices still sign a third consecutive week of decline. They lost respectively 1.53%, 1.03% and 0.79% over the last five sessions.
US President Donald Trump announced Thursday after the Wall Street closing that US and Chinese negotiators were holding “productive” talks and that they should meet again in September despite Washington’s decision to tax. From September 1, more than 125 billion dollars of additional tax would be imposed on Chinese products. These statements allow market players to breathe when the situation is not good.
On the statistics side, investors have seen a drop in US consumer confidence, falling to a seven-month low, as well as contrasting data on real estate.
Applied Materials lost 1.1 percent after the US giant of equipment for the production of semiconductors announced its third fiscal quarter results that came in above expectations. The group posted net earnings of $571 million and 61 cents per share, compared with $1 billion and $1.01 per share a year earlier.
Nvidia climbed 7.2% after the colossus of graphic processors achieved net income of $552 million or 90 cents per share for the second fiscal quarter, against $947 million and $1.54 per share a year earlier.
Deere rose 3.8% after the US giant of agricultural machinery once again reduced its profit forecast this Friday, affected by the Sino-US trade war.
General Electric loses 9.7% following Thursday’s selloff of 11.3% on charges of accounting fraud – its largest drop in 11 years. Lawrence Culp, CEO of GE, has just declared the acquisition of 252,000 shares of his group, which is perhaps better than all denials in the world. This information was forwarded to the SEC, US Market Authority, after the closing of Wall Street. Securities were purchased at $7.93 each, resulting in total purchases of $2 million.
