On Thursday, 19 November, the major U.S. indices ended trading in positive territory due to higher prices of high-tech stocks, which, due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, increased expectations of tightening of quarantine measures in several states of the country. The average number of new cases has risen to 162,800 in the U.S. over the past two weeks, which is 77 percent higher than two weeks ago.
The New York authorities have stated that in the coming days they plan to reintroduce lockdowns, including a ban on visiting restaurants and gyms. Schools in New York, except for private ones, have been closed since Thursday.
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Only in the second half of the session did the general mood of investors change to positive, and pessimism associated with unfavorable labor market statistics dominated the market at the beginning of trading. Thus, for the first time in a long time, the weekly number of initial demands for unemployment insurance showed a rise and amounted to 742 thousand, while analysts expected 707 thousand after 711 thousand (revised value) a week earlier.
The data on the index of business activity in the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia manufacturing sector for November was also disappointing, with the indicator being 26.3 points after 32.3 points in October. But the secondary housing market sales trends were positive. So in terms of annual rates, the metric increased by 4.3 percent m / m to 6.85 million homes, while analysts expected a decrease of 1.2 percent m/m.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.15 percent to 29,483 at the end of the session. The S&P 500 wide-market index went up by 0.39 percent to 3,581 points and the high-tech companies’ NASDAQ index advanced 0.87 percent and closed at 11,904 points.
At the end of trading on the NYMEX, the price of light crude oil futures for January delivery fell $0.11 to $41.90 a barrel. The price of gold futures for December delivery fell by $12.40 to $1,861.50 per troy ounce at the end of COMEX trading. In exchange, the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds was 0.85% .
Members of the high-tech industry were among the favorites at the trading. Shares of Netflix, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple in closed at 0.60 percent, 0.37 percent, 0.98 percent, 0.63 percent, 0.36 percent and 0.52 percent in positive territory, respectively. It is worth noting that an improvement in quarterly income and record revenue was posted by Nvidia.
The session also turned out well for the audio device manufacturer Sonos, which added 29.84 percent to its stock because of higher-than expected sales in the fourth fiscal quarter.
