New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange moved up Thursday shortly after the opening, driven in particular by the good health of technology stocks, including Microsoft.

Wall Street's flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, gained 0.26 percent to 27,218.01 points around 14:00 GMT.

Nasdaq, with strong technological color, was up 0.58% at 8,216.54 points, and the broad S & P 500 index gained 0.30% to 3,015.67 points.

Wall Street ended near equilibrium on Wednesday after a further rate cut announced by the US Federal Reserve (Fed), the Dow Jones appreciating 0.13% and the Nasdaq yielding 0.11%.

Broadly anticipated by market participants, the Fed's 25 basis point (0.25%) decline in overnight rates, the second this year, initially led to a decline in New Zealand's indexes. yorkaise wednesday.

They left at the end of the session, at the press conference of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, and continued their rise Thursday morning.

"One of the lessons of the last few years is that we should never give too much meaning to the initial reaction of the markets to a Fed decision." Listening to Mr. Powell yesterday, it became clear that he was not going to 'make early decisions,' said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.

The average of the Fed's projections ("dot plot" table) indicates that the central bank has no intention, for the time being, of going further in its rate cuts or ending 2019 or next year.

Wall Street was also supported Thursday by the technology sector, especially Microsoft, whose title was up 2.3%.

The US computer giant announced Wednesday a program to buy $ 40 billion of shares and increased by 11% (or 5 cents) its quarterly dividends.

Among the economic indicators, the current account deficit in the United States fell in the second quarter by 5.9% to $ 128.2 billion, according to figures released Thursday by the Department of Commerce .

This indicator reflects the imbalance between the United States and the rest of the world on trade in goods and services but also on so-called primary (remuneration, investment products) and secondary (current transfers) revenues.

Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region (northeastern United States) slowed in September, but less than expected, and industry remains optimistic for the future, according to the index of the local antenna Federal Reserve (Fed) released Thursday.

In the bond market, the 10-year US debt rate stood at 1.765%, slightly lower than the previous day's closing of 1.796%.

© 2019 AFP