As in Europe, Wall Street rebounded sharply on Thursday after a session that saw the Dow Jones plunged by 4.6%. After opening up 1.25% at 10,854 points, the Dow Jones increased its earnings in mid-day. It ends with a sharp increase from 3.95% to 11,143.31 points. Nasdaq rises from 4.69% to 2492.68 points and the S & P 500 climbed 4.63% to 1172.64 points.
After being attacked the night before, banks rebound and take the rating up: Bank of America takes up 6.50% to 7.21 dollars, JPMorgan Chase 6.49% to 36.60 dollars, Citigroup 6% to 30, 20 dollars and Wells Fargo 5.94% to 24.24 dollars.
The energy sector, also roughed up yesterday, today contributes significantly to higher indices, like the ExxonMobil oil (5% to 71.43 dollars). This increase is in the wake of oil prices that ended up on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex).A barrel of "light sweet crude" for September delivery finished at 85.72 dollars (2.83 dollars the previous day).
Good news on employment front
The Dow Jones has further accelerated its rebound at the start of the last hour of trade, in a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure that there was always the possibility of taking measures to "help accelerate growth and job creation. "Investors also had a renewed confidence in the announcement of a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday in Paris to discuss the reform of the governance of the euro area.
Also on the macroeconomic front, some good news also reassuring: the weekly jobless claims declined in the United States during the week to August 6 at 395,000 against 402,000 (revised) the previous week, said Thursday the Labor Department. Economists on average had expected 400,000 jobless.
On the front of the U.S. housing: the number of dwellings within the scope of foreclosures fell in July to a low of four months in the United States, according to a study released Thursday.Loan defaults, seizures and sales of bank foreclosures have affected 212,764 properties in July, a low not seen since November 2007, according to the firm RealtyTrac.
Note however that the country's trade deficit widened further in June according to figures released Thursday by the Commerce Department, reaching its highest level since October 2008 as a result of a sharp decline in exports.On a seasonally adjusted, the deficit reached 53.1 billion dollars against 50.8 billion (revised) the previous month, while U.S. exports fell by more than 2% over the month.
Cisco did better than expected
On the corporate side, the telecoms and IT supplier in the U.S. Cisco (15.95% to 15.92 dollars) on Wednesday issued an annual net profit down 16.4% to $ 6.5 billion, and a profit in the fourth quarter, down 36.3% to $ 1.2 billion. However, both figures higher than expected.
The media group News Corporation (18.09% to 16.19 dollars) to Rupert Murdoch, shaken by the recent wiretapping scandal in Britain, tried to reassure on Wednesday, its investors by issuing a profit annual increase."Although this was a good quarter of a financial point of view, our group has faced in recent weeks to problems with our London tabloid News of the World", accused of having carried on tapping some 4,000 people in the 2000s, said the group's CEO, Rupert Murdoch, in a statement.
In addition, Google (2.39% to 562.13 dollars) is followed. The investigation by U.S. authorities in charge of Competition (FTC) about a possible abuse of dominant position of Google, announced in June, focuses on the Android operating system and the search engine, we learned on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
No major publication is expected this weekend. It will take into effect until next Tuesday for Home Depot, Walmart and Dell publish their interim results.In the meantime, Monday, August 15, Estée Lauder will unveil its third-quarter figures.