New York (AFP)

Wall Street started August with enthusiasm on Monday, driven by the rise of major tech stocks, in particular Microsoft and Apple.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 0.45% to 26,548.05 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, appreciated by 1.24% to 10.878.09 points.

The extended S&P 500 index rose 0.51% to 3,288.09 points.

The New York Stock Exchange finished in the green on Friday, benefiting from the iron health of stocks from Amazon, Apple and Facebook, which all delivered excellent quarterly results: the Dow Jones had taken 0.44% and the Nasdaq 1.49%.

The five American IT giants, Alphabet (parent company of Google and YouTube), Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, continued to drive the market upwards on Monday.

Microsoft, which confirmed on Sunday that negotiations to buy the US branch of the social network Tiktok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance were continuing, saw its stock rise 4.24%.

Apple, which last week posted quarterly revenues up sharply to nearly $ 60 billion, gained 4.23%.

The market strength of these tech giants could allow the S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, to soon surpass its record set in February.

“It's pretty incredible considering what's going on outside the equity market,” said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

"There is this thing called the coronavirus that has put more than 17 million Americans out of work, leading to the highest unemployment since the Great Depression," recalls the expert.

"There are strong diplomatic tensions between the United States and China, there is a rise in social tensions in the United States and dissensions in Congress which prevent agreement on a new part of the fiscal stimulus plan ", continues Mr. O'Hare.

Negotiations on additional measures to help households and businesses hit hard by the impact of the pandemic still seemed to be at an impasse.

One-off weekly $ 600 aid to unemployed Americans on top of regular benefits since March ended on Friday.

Among the indicators scrutinized by the market, investors will take note on Friday of the monthly report of the Department of Labor on employment and the unemployment rate for the month of July.

The US economy created 4.8 million jobs in June and the unemployment rate stood at 11.1%.

In the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt rose to 0.5674% from 0.5282% on Friday night.

© 2020 AFP