Tek rise on Wall Street – Apple rose before the release of figures – E24

After the close of business on Thursday, Apple will present its quarterly figures.

There has been a good mood in the US stock markets throughout the trading day on Thursday.

This is what it looks like at closing time at 10 p.m.:

• The Dow Jones rose 0.85 percent.
• The technology index Nasdaq rose 1.51 percent.
• The collective index S&P 500 ended up 0.91 percent.

On Wednesday, all three key indices rose significantly just after Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell began taking questions during the press conference following the interest rate decision. However, the joy was short-lived, and the rise evaporated towards the end of the day.

On Friday, there will be fresh job figures from the US, nonfarm payrolls. These are often referred to as the most important numbers of the month.

Apple presents numbers

After closing time on Wall Street on Thursday evening, Apple presents fresh quarterly figures.

The Apple share rose 2.2 percent ahead of the release of the figures.

Apple is in second place on the list of the world’s most valuable companies, with a market value of around 2.660 billion dollars. Only Microsoft is worth more.

AI has been highlighted as an important reason why Microsoft overtook Apple in market value last winter. Apple has dominated since the early 2010s, fueled by the success of the iPhone, but now artificial intelligence is playing an important role in the tech giant’s market value.

Apple operates with deviating financial years, and today presents figures for the second quarter. In the first quarter, Apple increased revenue, after going through four consecutive quarters of revenue decline.

There is extra tension attached to the general trend in Apple’s third largest market, China, writes CNBC.

In the first quarter, sales fell by 13 percent in China compared to the previous year. The decline may indicate worsening conditions in a key market for Apple, where the company also manufactures most of its products, writes CNBC. Apple has also faced greater competition from local companies, such as Huawei.

Concerns about iPhone sales helped weigh on the company’s share price at the start of the year. Apple shares are down around seven percent so far this year.

Take-up

On Tuesday, the online shopping giant Amazon presented figures, such as that the company increased its turnover to 143.3 billion dollars last quarter. The cloud service segment now accounts for a large part of Amazon’s growth.

Tech giants Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet all released figures last week. The quarterly reports lifted the markets last week after good results.

AI favorite Nvidia will present figures later this month.

All of the aforementioned tech giants ended the day with gains on Thursday.

Keeps the interest rate unchanged

As expected, the US central bank kept interest rates unchanged during yesterday’s interest rate decision.

The interest rate level in the USA will thus remain in the range of 5.25 to 5.50 per cent. It has been lying dormant there since July last year.

The Federal Reserve says there has been a lack of progress towards the two percent inflation target in recent months.

During the press conference afterwards, the governor of the central bank was asked, among other things, whether it might be appropriate to raise interest rates again.

– I think it is unlikely that the next interest rate movement will be a rise, says Powell.

Chief economist Marius Gonsholt Hov at Handelsbanken told E24 on Wednesday that Powell is deliberately dampening speculation that there may be another interest rate hike.

– The interest rate is sufficiently high to have a tightening effect, according to Powell, says Hov.