(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street made strong gains on Thursday, with Meta shares soaring and despite a sharp deceleration in US growth. The Dow Jones gained 1.6% to 33,826 points, and the Nasdaq Composite, 2.4% to 12,142 points.

Driving the entire technology compartment, Meta climbed 13.9% after a quarterly profit well above estimates, reassuring investors of its ability to continue to generate growth.

‘The next growth driver could now be artificial intelligence, which could raise the stock’s valuation multiples’, Bank of America analysts pointed out after this publication.

Among the many other company publications of the day, the operators sanctioned that of Caterpillar (-5.7%), but welcomed those of Merck (+ 1.5%), Eli Lilly (+ 3.7%), Honeywell (+4%) and eBay (+5.1%).

This wave of well-received quarterly reports eclipsed US GDP figures suggesting a marked slowdown in growth, to 1.1% in the first quarter, after 2.6% in the last quarter of 2022, notably under the effect of a destocking movement.

‘But this deceleration hides an underlying resistance and a soft landing remains the most likely scenario’, tempered Christophe Boucher, chief investment officer of ABN Amro Investment Solutions.

‘We still expect the economy to contract slightly in the second half of the year, due to the Federal Reserve’s sharp rate hikes’, commented on the other hand at Commerzbank.

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