The technology sector led the rebound, with the Nasdaq gaining 1.01%. to 11,787.40 points. The Dow Jones index gained 0.23% to 32,105.25 points and the S&P 500 0.30% to 3,948.72 points.

On Wednesday, the U.S. central bank (Fed) raised interest rates by only a quarter of a percentage point and, importantly, signaled that it was considering only one more such hike in the short term, which reassured markets on Thursday.

"The Fed said it was going to pause following another hike. This is a positive signal and that is why the market performed relatively well today," said Hugh Johnson of Hugh Johnson Economics.

According to him, the markets, which had concluded in the red the day before, had "misinterpreted" the comments of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell during which he seemed to "indicate that several hikes could follow".

"But on closer inspection, markets realize that the Fed intends to pause after only one other hike to assess the impact of both rate hikes and the decrease in lending grants," which should slow the economy and inflation, the analyst told AFP.

The decline in U.S. consumer lending began this year, according to Johnson, well before the turmoil in regional banks began.

After the Federal Reserve, the Swiss National Bank announced a rate hike of 50 basis points to 1.50%, as expected, and claimed that the country's banking crisis was over. The Bank of England (BoE) also raised its key rate on Thursday for the 11th consecutive time (+0.25 points to 4.25%).

On Thursday, a jobs indicator also gave the market a good mood with weekly applications for unemployment benefits that remain well below 200,000, at 191,000, contrary to expectations.

As for the real estate market, sales of new homes rose slightly in February to 640,000 at an annual rate. However, they remain down 19% over one year.

On the other hand, the market was driven exclusively by communication (+1.83%) and information technology (+1.65%). All other sectors remained in the red.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) seemed to take advantage (+2.24%) of the bad quarter of an hour spent by the boss of TikTok during a hearing in the US Congress. The platform, a subsidiary of the Chinese group Bytedance, is threatened with ban in the United States.

Other social media stocks such as Snap (+3.08%) and Pinterest (+0.51%) also benefited from the situation.

Netflix, which competes with TikTok for consumer entertainment time, jumped 9%.

Jack Dorsey's group, Block (formerly Square) fell 14.82% to $ 61.88, attacked by the investment fund Hindenburg Research. In a document released Thursday, Hindenburg argues that Block has "misled investors by publishing overvalued data" regarding the number of its users.

Co-founded by former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, Block, which owns the Cash App application, is dedicated to financial transactions.

The cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has melted 14.05% as it is threatened with prosecution by the policeman of the Exchange, the SEC, for violation of the law on securities.

The market welcomed the savings plan of the consulting firm Accenture, which announced the elimination of about 19,000 positions, or 2.5% of its workforce, spread over the next 18 months. The stock climbed 7.26% to $271.66.

In the bond market, yields on ten-year Treasuries eased to 3.39% from 3.43% on Wednesday.

© 2023 AFP