Two of the indices on Wall Street began second half of 2017 with a record after displaying upbeat performance in the first half of the year. The rally came on the back of financial and energy sectors. Markets yesterday closed earlier and today will remain closed for the Independence Day.
The industrial Dow Jones marked a growth of 130 points to a record 21 479.27 points, an increase of 0.61% compared to the end of last week. Goldman Sachs was the biggest contributor to this growth. The banking sector in the US continues to celebrate the good results of stress tests of the Federal Reserve which came out last week.
The broader S & P 500 rose 0.23% 2 429.01 points. Technological Nasdaq , however, was in a red territory, taking into account the decline in value of 0.49 percent to 6 110.06 points. The gains were restricted due to Microsoft, whose shares fell 0.12 percent to 68.15 dollars a share. Minimum price decline was experienced by Intel – which fell 0.06 percent to 33.44 dollars a share.
The energy sector recorded strong growth amid the longest winning streak – eight consecutive sessions of gains for the oil price in the last seven years. The light crude oil closed the trading price of 47.07 dollars per barrel, an increase of 2.2%. European Brent is trading slightly above $49 a barrel.
“I think what we have here is an environment that is reasonably good,” said John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management. Manley said the investment atmosphere continues to be a good one and that earnings may further bolster confidence, if results are better than expected.
“The environment is not a bad environment and I look around and say valuations are high but they are kind of on the low end of high, but if nothing unexpectedly bad happens, it probably is not going to matter,” said Manley.
Commodity trade is on the rise after data drop in yields in the US. Since the beginning of the year oil markets were under pressure from the development of the oil sector in the US, which analysts say would undermine the actions of OPEC to balance the market.
The US dollar increased in value. On currency markets one euro traded for 1.1366 dollars against 1.1427 dollars late last week.
The price of gold fell by 1.9% to 1 219.20 dollars a troy ounce, under pressure to stabilize the dollar. This is the lowest price of the metal from early May onwards.
