Wall Street in balance, between health fears and budget hopes

Wall Street ended close to balance on Monday, falling at the start of the session before making up some of its losses, in a market worried about the mutation of Covid-19, spotted in particular in Great Britain, but optimistic in terms of American revival.

The flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 0.12% to 30,216.45 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, dropped 0.10% to 12,742.52 points and the extended S&P 500 index lost 0.39% to 3,694.92 points.

The clues first nosedived in the morning, reacting to reports of a new strain of the coronavirus that led the United Kingdom to impose new containment measures and isolate the country from the rest of the world.

“This gave market players a good reason to reap some profits, especially as several contracts expired,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities.

But during the session, the European Union’s authorization of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech gave a boost to investors, who hope that the imminent start of the vaccination campaign will help restart the continent’s economy. .

The market was also confident in the vote on Monday in the United States of a budget envelope of 900 billion dollars after an agreement reached Sunday evening in the United States Congress between the Republicans and the Democrats on measures to support the economy.

This new aid package provides for checks of 600 dollars per adult and per child for American families weakened by the pandemic.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday morning that those checks would be sent out early next week.

“The closer we get to Christmas, the more investors should stay on the sidelines,” anticipates Mr. Cardillo, as Thursday’s session will be shortened and the New York Stock Exchange will remain closed on Friday.

In terms of values, the major American airlines ended up in the red, weighted down by the suspension of a large number of flights from the United Kingdom: American Airlines, Delta and United Airlines fell from 1.5% to 2.5% .

Tesla officially joined the prestigious S&P 500 before the stock market opened, where the high-end vehicle maker already has the sixth largest capitalization behind Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (the parent company of Google) and Facebook. Tesla’s stock fell 6.49%.

The American biotech Agios took off (+ 28.33%) after the announcement of the takeover of its oncology division by the French pharmaceutical group Servier for an initial amount of 1.8 billion dollars.

A member of the Dow Jones, Nike gained 4.91%, benefiting from the publication Friday evening of better than expected quarterly results thanks to strong sales online and in China.