New York (AFP)
The New York Stock Exchange rose at the opening on Friday despite a dismal US employment report in April, with investors banking on the fact that the worst of the crisis has passed.
Around 1:40 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, its flagship index, gained 1.08% to 24,133.53 points.
The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, appreciated by 0.61% to 9,034.03 points.
The broader S&P 500 Index, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, gained 0.86% to 2,906.10 points.
Wall Street had already finished in the green Thursday, showing optimism on a gradual reopening of the economy: the Dow Jones had gained 0.89% and the Nasdaq 1.41%.
Friday, market players reacted little after the announcement of the destruction of 20.5 million jobs in April in the United States, a record level in such a short time.
This is "more than twice the number of job losses taken during the financial crisis" of 2007-2009, note analysts at Oxford Economics. "There have been more jobs lost in the past two months than have been created in the past decade," they add.
The unemployment rate, which stood at 3.5% in February, jumped to 14.7%, its highest level since June 1940.
"The market is watching this devastating data with the idea that the situation can only improve now," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.
They are encouraged in this sense by several signals, such as Uber which claimed that its activity had started up again in the last three weeks or Ford which said that its production would resume on May 18 in the United States.
The indices were also supported on Friday by statements claiming that Chinese and US negotiators had pledged to implement their trade deal signed earlier this year despite the coronavirus epidemic.
A positive signal as tensions between the two leading world economic powers seemed to have rekindled in recent days.
On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the American debt rose, standing at 0.6561% against 0.6409% on Thursday evening.
© 2020 AFP