The Nasdaq soared Thursday, as a spike in Facebook – Meta on quarterly results and a big stock repurchase prompted a spike in tech. Equities extended on profits from a day earlier.
Meta Platforms posted Q4 sales above analyst projections, and launched a $40 billion share repurchase program. This drove its shares up by more than 3%. Sentiment on the shares was further lifted as CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted objectives including simplifying the organizational structure to transform to a more effective corporation.
You may also like: What is Damus and how is it connected to Nostr?
Wall Street applauded the focus on efficiency after the company spent billions to maintain engagement. This was following the impact of Apple’s confidentiality modifications to its iOS mobile operating system. S&P 500 is up by 1.4% in the green and Nasdaq gained 3.3%. On the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrial Average after gaining 1.8%, closed in the red with a 0.11% decline.
More to read: What is Damus and how is it connected to Nostr?
Other mega cap tech firms like Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet, which all shared Q4 results after the market close, increased massively in value. Rallies were 3.71% by Apple, 7.38% by Amazon and finally 7.3% by Alphabet.
Dollar gained as ECB and BoE hike rates
The dollar rebounded on Thursday after the European Central Bank hiked interest rates by 50 basis points, which was widely anticipated. The Bank of England took a more dovish tone over inflation.
EUR/USD fell 0.7% down to the 1.0900 area after closing near 1.1000 last session. AUD/USD also felt the dollar’s bounce back with a red close at 0.7.77 with a 0.81% decline. The Japanese yen held its ground as USD/JPY closed almost flat with only a 0.16% decline. GBP/USD also reacted to BoE’s rate hike with a 1.22% decline to 1.2224.
Commodities extend decline from last day
For oil bulls, relying on the dollar’s depreciation is never a sure thing. With the US crude inventories soaring and demand comparatively falling, it is not an exact correlation. WTI, crude futures for March finished down 0.7%, to $75.88 a barrel on Thursday. That worsened Wednesday’s 2.7% slide in WTI.
Brent crude for March delivery finished in the red with a 0.8% decline. At $82.17, brent extended the previous session’s 2.6% decline.
After a few days of serious sell offs, the Henry Hub gas futures finished down only 0.5%, at $2.4560 per mmBtu, or metric million British thermal units. This was after plummeting to a 22-month low of $2.431 after the released storage data. The last time a Henry Hub benchmark gas contract traded for less was at $2.422 in March.
Comments
Post has no comment yet.