(News Bulletin 247) – The New York Stock Exchange rose on Friday following the publication of a good ISM services index, yet likely to fuel fears about the Fed’s monetary policy.

At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones advanced 0.3% to 33,108.3 points, while the Nasdaq Composite won more than 1% to 11,578.8 points.

Wall Street, whose three flagship indices had opened in the green, maintained the bullish course started the day before in the wake of the ISM, which showed that activity in the services sector had increased further in February.

The ISM index thus stood at 55.1 last month, against 55.2 in January, a figure well above the expectations of economists who were aiming for 54.5.

These signs of good resilience in the services sector, which generates a large part of current inflation, could however continue to encourage the Fed to raise its interest rates.

But the equity markets prefer to surf on the reassuring remarks made the day before by Raphael Bostic, the president of the Atlanta Fed, who came out in favor of a “slow and steady” increase in Fed rates.

The strength of the US economy and the prospect of further rate hikes nevertheless lead investors not to desert the bond compartment too soon.

However, the yield on 10-year Treasuries lost some ground following the publication of the statistics, without however breaking the 4% mark.

The dollar also accentuated its decline against the euro, pushing the single currency up to 1.06.

As for values, Dell Technologies (-0.3%) opened the session on a hesitant note despite the good quarterly results published the previous evening.

Costco for its part dropped 3% after announcing net income for its second accounting quarter of nearly $1.47 billion, or $3.30 per share, compared to EPS of $2.92 under the same period of the previous year.

At this stage of the week, the Dow Jones index shows a weekly gain of 0.9% while the Nasdaq has won 1.7% since Monday morning.

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