PARIS (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange opened slightly higher on Tuesday after solid quarterly results in the health sector, but the trend remains fragile pending new comments from officials of the American Federal Reserve (Fed) which caused bond yields to rise the day before.
In early trading, the Dow Jones index gained 63.24 points, or 0.16%, to 38,443.36 points and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.17% to 4,951.6 points.
The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.19%, or 29.34 points, to 15,627.02.
In the absence of major macroeconomic indicators for this session, investors are primarily focused on the expected interventions from Fed officials, notably Loretta Mester, voting member of the FOMC this year.
The day before, Fed President Jerome Powell’s call for “caution” on rate cuts expected by the markets caused the yield on ten-year Treasuries to jump by 13 basis points. On Tuesday, it appears almost stable, at 4.1481%, which offers some support to stocks.
The market is also driven by the results of Eli Lilly (+2.29%), which announced on Tuesday that it expects a profit for 2024 higher than Wall Street estimates, thanks to its anti-obesity treatment Zepbound and its diabetes drug. Mounjaro.
The health index on the S&P-500 advances by 0.52% with also GE Healthcare Technologies (+6.92%), which reported a quarterly profit better than expected.
Industrial stocks are also doing well in the wake of Dupont De Nemours (+4.83%), which on Tuesday beat the Wall Street consensus for the fourth quarter and announced a new share buyback program of one billion dollars.
The Chinese groups Alibaba (+1.90%), JD.com (+4.55%), PDD Holdings (+2.74%) and Tencent Music (+1.83%), benefit from speculation on a plan recovery in China, the Bloomberg agency having reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping is preparing to meet the country’s financial regulators.
On the downside, FMC Corp fell 11.33% due to quarterly profit below expectations and weak 2024 forecasts.
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(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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