New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange was up slightly on Tuesday after several strong quarterly business results, at the start of a session driven by the first steps of an index fund (ETF) linked to bitcoin.

At 2:20 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones advanced 0.37%, the Nasdaq 0.41% and the S&P 500 0.50%.

The day before, the indices had ended on a mixed note, the Dow Jones giving up 0.10% to 35,258.61 points.

The Nasdaq index, very oriented by technology stocks, had gained 0.84% ​​to 15,021.81 points, and the extended S&P 500 index had gained 0.34% to 4,486.46 points.

New on Wall Street, the Stock Exchange hosted its first bitcoin-linked index fund on Tuesday.

The listing of the ProShares ETF, based on bitcoin-linked futures and licensed for the first time on the New York financial center, represented an important symbolic step in the popularization of cryptocurrencies.

The shares "are on the rise at the start of the session, the markets digesting a season of better results in the third quarter," said analysts at Schwab, after the release of figures from Procter and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson.

"So far, I'm fine," summed up Art Hogan of National Securities.

The market is waiting after the close for Netflix figures, which could set the stage for the US computer and internet giants, as well as the results of the airline company United Airlines.

- Monitored inflation -

Inflation remained "the number one concern," Hogan added, however, with investors looking to see if cost increases "will have a deleterious effect on profit margins and forecasts for the next quarter and the start of the year. 'next year".

The American group of consumer products Procter & Gamble (P&G) lost 2% to 139 dollars after revealing quarterly sales exceeding expectations but mentioned the weight of the rise in the costs of raw materials and transport in its activity.

Pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson (J&J) gained more than 2% to 163 dollars after revising upwards its profit forecast in 2021 despite lower than expected turnover in the third to 23.3 billion dollars (+10 , 7%).

The single-dose Covid-19 vaccine that the company sells at cost generated $ 502 million in revenue in the quarter.

J&J expects revenue of $ 2.5 billion for its vaccine for the full year.

The title of the oil services group Halliburton fell 1.63% to 25.50 dollars after presenting a turnover a little lower than forecasts of analysts but a return to profits.

The group expects an increase in its activity because of the "structural and global tightening of the commodity market," said CEO Jeff Miller.

BITO, the first ETF linked to bitcoin authorized on Wall Street, for its part made a grand entrance, even inviting the leaders of its manager ProShares to the New York Stock Exchange to come and ring the bell which symbolizes the opening of the Marlet.

By buying shares that were trading up nearly 3% after the opening, investors are not directly buying bitcoin but shares in digital currency-linked futures.

The arrival of this new financial product has been one of the main factors in the rise of bitcoin for the past month.

At 2.15pm GMT, it moderated its lead to 1.66% to $ 62,394 but had briefly exceeded $ 63,000 at the opening.

"The event was certainly one of the most anticipated and this is what pushed cryptocurrency on the rise," said Art Hogan.

"But often when you see such anticipation, it is followed by a downward movement, reflecting a type of motivation: you buy on the rumor but you sell when the news comes," noted the analyst.

© 2021 AFP