(News Bulletin 247) – After a difficult start, Wall Street headed higher on Thursday morning, with investors seeming to want to play on the positive side of the economic indicators published at the start of the day.

At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones rose 0.8% to 34,264.7 points, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.4% to 13,687.9 points.

The publication, an hour before the opening, of several better than expected economic indicators fueled investor optimism and supported the rating.

Expected to decline slightly, retail sales notably increased by 0.3% in May, after having already posted an increase of 0.4% in April, testifying to the solidity of household consumption.

To complete this favorable picture, the New York Fed’s Empire State index rebounded in May, import prices continue to decline and jobless claims remain stable.

As is often the case in the markets, it’s a bit of a glass-half-full or half-empty story: while they testify to the resilience of the economy, these figures also seem to confirm the Fed’s intention to continue to tighten its monetary policy.

But the participants seem determined to look at the positive side of the news, which leads them to favor technology stocks (+0.7%), still considered to be the big winners of growth in the United States.

The oil sector also draws the odds since the index grouping energy stocks, with a gain of 1.3%, shows the strongest sectoral increase on Thursday.

This recovery comes against a backdrop of recovery in oil prices, with a barrel of American light crude oil (WTI) rebounding 1.8% to 69.5 dollars after its decline in recent weeks.

As for values, the action of distributor Target stands out, which gained 2.4% following the announcement of an increase in its quarterly dividend.

Microsoft is also well oriented (+2.5%) thanks to positive comments from analysts, who see the software giant benefiting from the emergence of generative artificial intelligence.

AMD (-3.5%) is on the contrary suffering from profit taking after having climbed 92% since the start of the year, with many managers seeing the value as one of the stocks to play for in the context of the rise of AI.

On the bond side, the fait accompli of the latest decisions of the major central banks prevails with a yield on ten-year Treasuries which slackens to 3.72%, which weighs on the dollar which drops 0.8% to fall back towards 1.0820 against to the euro.

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