Washington (awp/afp) – The New York Stock Exchange opened higher on Wednesday, driven by corporate results generally above expectations and relieved by announcements from US President Donald Trump on customs duties and intelligence artificial (AI).
Around 3:20 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones gained 0.35%, the Nasdaq index gained 1.23% and the broader S&P 500 index advanced 0.69%.
The company results “were enough to revive a stock market which had been bogged down due to the rise in bond rates,” said Patrick O’Hare, analyst at Briefing.com, in a note.
“The recovery continues (…) so far around fifteen key companies have published their results”, most of which have shown good performance, Peter Cardillon, analyst at Spartan Capital Securities, explained to AFP.
This analyst highlighted in particular the case of Netflix which “contributes to the market mood”, the streaming platform soaring on Wednesday (+12.16%) after having announced slightly better results than expected the day before, with nearly 19 million new subscriptions won during the fourth quarter of 2024.
With more than 300 million subscribers, Netflix consolidates its position as a pioneer and leader in the streaming industry. Over the last three months of 2024, the company achieved $10.2 billion in quarterly revenue, up 16%, of which it generated $1.9 billion in net profit.
Another rising value, the American household and hygiene products giant Procter & Gamble (P&G) gained 2.24% on Wednesday, after publishing results above expectations for the second quarter of its staggered financial year. The owner of Febreze, Gilette and Pampers notably announced a net profit up 33%, to $4.65 billion.
GE Vernova, which brings together the former energy activities of the General Electric conglomerate, also advanced (+2.42%), despite a net profit below expectations in the fourth quarter of 2024. Relying on a large order book, the group reaffirmed its forecasts for 2025.
In addition to the results, “the fact that Trump adopts a more measured outlook (than expected) in terms of customs duties also contributes to the upward movement” of the market, according to Peter Cardillo.
-The new American president assured Tuesday evening that his government was discussing “10% customs duties on Chinese products”, “probably for February 1st”. This date corresponds to that announced the day before for the application of 25% customs duties on Mexican and Canadian products.
Donald Trump justifies these possible customs duties by the fact that China sends “fentanyl to Mexico and Canada”, which according to him ends up being consumed in the United States. This synthetic drug, whose analgesic effect is 100 times more powerful than that of morphine, according to the American anti-drug agency (DEA), is at the origin of an immense health crisis in the United States.
However, these would be customs duties of a magnitude much lower than the 60% previously mentioned by Mr. Trump.
On the bond market, the yield on ten-year US government bonds stood at 4.57% compared to 4.56% the day before at closing.
Elsewhere, on the stock market, stocks linked to AI benefited from Donald Trump’s announcement of the new Stargate project, which includes investments of “at least 500 billion dollars” in AI infrastructures in the United States.
The IT services giant Oracle jumped in particular (+6.10%). Semiconductor manufacturers also welcomed this announcement, like Nvidia (+3.81%), Broadcom (+0.87%) and Qualcomm (+1.85%).
afp/rp
Related News :