Strong Rising Inflation in the US Takes Centre Stage on Higher Wall Street
The US stock exchanges started the new trading day with gains on Thursday. Investors are processing the sharp rise in inflation in the country, but it seemed to have hardly any effect on the indicators in New York for the time being.
Inflation in the United States stood at 5 percent on an annual basis in May. This made life in the US on average even more expensive than the average expectation of experts, who assumed an increase in inflation to 4.7 percent. There are fears that the general price increases will make the central bank umbrella organization, the Federal Reserve, more likely to decide to raise interest rates or to phase out corona support measures.
Shortly after the opening bell, the leading Dow-Jones index was 0.8 percent higher at 34,722 points. The broad S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent to 4,245 points, and tech gauge Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent to 13,987 points.
Lately, there has been turmoil on the stock markets due to rising inflation and its possible consequences. Inflation is also being driven by supply chain problems, including computer chips and rising commodity prices.
It was also announced that the number of new unemployment benefits in the US has fallen for the sixth week in a row. However, the decrease of 9,000 to 376,000 applications was less strong than the 370,000 applications that economists generally took into account. The interest rate decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) was also monitored. In Frankfurt, the fireworks did not come as expected.
Among the companies, attention was focused on the computer game store chain GameStop. Two former Amazon executives join the company’s top executives. The directors must assist in the transition from GameStop to an e-commerce company. However, the GameStop share lost more than 6 percent because the company also announced that it wanted to sell another 5 million shares in due course.
Aircraft maker Boeing also gained 2.7 percent. United Airlines has reportedly ordered a substantial number of new aircraft from Boeing. This would include at least a hundred aircraft of the 737 MAX type.
Automaker Tesla will launch its new Model S Plaid later on Thursday. This type of car will be for sale for just under $ 120,000. The car has a range of almost 630 kilometres, according to Tesla. Shares of Tesla rose 1.5 percent.