There was an upbeat momentum on Wall Street ahead of new earnings season. Two of the leading stock market indices recorded gains, supported by the noteworthy performance of technology companies.
By the end of week three banks – JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, will publish reports for the second quarter of the year. For all three institutions, the first trading day of the week, however, ended in red territory.
And Dow Jones failed to record growth in the last minutes of trade. The blue chip index fell 0.03% to settle at 21 408.52 points. Wal-Mart was the most active and among the top performers. For the Nasdaq and S&P 500, however, ended the day in green territory. For the broader S&P index, the change was minimal but the on the upside – rising 0.09% to 2,427.43 points. In turn Nasdaq finished with a rise of 0.38% to 6 176.39 points.
All three indexes increased in value since the beginning of the year – with or above 8%, but perform below record peaks recorded in June.
Shares of Tesla fluctuated between growth and loss throughout the session, trying to erase losses last week. The company pulled a bear market in early July, and its stock price fell 20% compared to the historical peak reached in late June. Tesla shares rose 0.9 percent to 316.05 dollars a share.
Oil prices rose fractionally, after Libya and Nigeria were invited to join the agreement of OPEC to restrict production. The two countries remained outside the arrangements because of the economic problems faced by them, but data show an increase in yield, which undermines the efforts of the cartel to return balance to the market.
Oil markets, however, still remained unable to overcome the fall in price last week (within about 4%). Light crude oil rose 0.4 percent to 44.40 dollars per barrel. European grade Brent reached a price of 46.88 dollars per barrel, which is also an increase of 0.4 percent.
The price of gold rose 0.3 percent to 1 213.20 dollars an ounce. The precious metal is pushed from a four-month low of 1 209.70 dollars an ounce, which was reached late last week.
