New York (AFP)

The three main indices of the New York Stock Exchange concluded sharply on Thursday, driven by good banking results and a favorable American employment indicator.

According to final results on Wall Street, the Dow Jones index gained 1.56% to 34,912.56 points, posting one of its best sessions since July.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq advanced 1.73% to 14,823.43 points, its best score since May, while the S&P 500 rose 1.71% to 4,438.26 points.

A salvo of robust results in the banking sector but also weekly applications for unemployment benefits falling in the United States gave wings to the indices.

"We have seen good financial results and we have had good news on the macroeconomic side," said AFP Tom Cahill of Ventura Wealth Management.

"Unemployment registrations have fallen below the 300,000 mark for the first time since the start of the pandemic", noted the expert.

To this we had to add a wholesale price index (PPI) for September weaker than expected at + 0.4% over the month against projections from analysts betting on + 0.6%.

Even if over one year, the producer price index in the United States climbs to + 8.6%, the largest increase since 2010, "it looks like inflation is stabilizing at a high level and that could start to decline over the next few quarters, ”says Tom Cahill.

Another good point for the market, bond rates on 10-year Treasury bills eased to 1.51% from 1.53%.

"Whenever you have good economic news and at the same time the yields on Treasury bills do not rise, it is very positive for the market," said the specialist, also stressing that the market was "a little oversold" recently.

- High in the green -

Thus, the eleven sectors of the S&P concluded high in the green, starting with materials (+ 2.43%) and information technologies (+ 2.28%), followed by industrial stocks (+1.88 %), those of communication (+ 1.75%) and banks (+ 1.65%).

Among equities, bank securities were sought after strong results boosted by the reduction in reserves built up at the start of the pandemic.

Bank of America (+ 4.47% to 45.07 dollars) saw its profit jump 58% in the third quarter, helped by the improvement in the economy which allowed it to reduce these reserves.

Its net profit reached $ 7.69 billion.

After a 48% increase in the third quarter for Citigroup, reaching 4.6 billion dollars, the title of the company rose 0.70% to 70.75 dollars.

That of US investment bank Morgan Stanley jumped 2.46% to $ 100.99 after the bank also reported better-than-expected results.

The group posted a net profit of $ 3.71 billion from July to September, up 36% from the same period last year.

In the healthcare sector, UnitedHealth Group jumped 4.17% to $ 420.36 after better-than-expected quarterly results.

The health insurer explained in particular that while the Delta variant had caused more hospitalizations, it had also caused the postponement of other costly interventions in hospitals.

The aircraft manufacturer Boeing dropped 1.96% to 217.43 dollars after confirming Thursday that a manufacturing defect had been detected on its long-haul 787 Dreamliner, a model already affected by a series of technical problems.

© 2021 AFP