New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange rose to open Friday, showing itself in a position to end on weekly gains after a difficult start to the week amid fears of the economic impact of the Delta variant.

Around 4:15 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones index rose 0.35%.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, advanced 0.28%.

The extended S&P 500 index was up 0.43%.

The day before, closing in the green for the third session in a row, the Dow Jones had gleaned 0.07% to 34,823.35 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, had taken 0.36% to 14,684.59 points and the extended S&P 500 index 0.20% to 4,367.48 points.

"The market is extending a noticeable early rally after Monday's sharp drop and stocks are on track to post weekly gains," analysts Charles Schwab said.

If the indices end the week in the green, it would be the fourth weekly gain in the past five weeks.

The string of good quarterly results and rather optimistic projections from business leaders was helping to paint a positive picture of activity despite fears that the rise in Covid-19 cases around the world could derail the recovery.

The American Express group (+ 3.52% to 176.91 dollars), a member of the Dow Jones, saw its turnover jump by 33% in the second quarter, after five consecutive quarters of decline, thanks to the resumption of purchases of consumers.

Kimberly Clark, the group of consumer hygiene products, on the other hand, had a disappointing tomorrow after a good year because of lockdowns and the pandemic.

The group lowered its annual profit forecast, which lowered the title by 2.93%.

On the tech side, Snap climbed 24% to 78.17% after announcing Thursday a stronger than expected increase in Snapchat app users to 293 million.

Investors were also betting on the big names in the sector such as Facebook (+ 2.98%) and Alphabet, Google's parent company (+ 1.68%), before the announcement of their results next week with those of Apple and from Microsoft.

Several actions of Chinese groups were in turmoil as Beijing toughened its regulatory action against, in particular, the country's companies listed abroad.

The "Chinese Uber", Didi, plummeted 16.47% as Chinese regulators plan to take exemplary sanctions against the start-up, including a record fine.

This comes after Didi raised $ 4.4 billion when it joined the New York Stock Exchange at the end of June, which Beijing was not in favor of.

The online commerce giant Alibaba, itself the object of a fine of 2.3 billion euros in April, dropped 4.23% on Wall Street at 205.23 dollars.

© 2021 AFP