At the close of yesterday's trading session, a multidirectional movement of the main exchange indicators was recorded on the stock markets of the United States of America. While the S&P 500 and NASDAQ increased their already strong positions, the Dow Jones index had a not-so-serious decline.
The main attention of market participants was directed towards the political situation that is heating up in America. Yesterday, the House of Representatives began considering a resolution on the announcement of the impeachment of the outgoing president of the country, Donald Trump. According to the authorities, The reason for such harsh measures is that he was the main instigator of the riots that occurred last week at the Capitol. No final decision has been made yet, but the Democratic Party is ready to do anything to punish Trump.
Against the background of such a difficult political situation in the United States, stock indicators continue to remain afloat and maintain their maximum values that were reached earlier, although it was still necessary to retreat a little from the records. This means that for the market, in addition to politics, there are other important topics of greater impact. One of them is mass vaccination against Coronavirus infection, which is gradually gaining momentum. The other is the adoption of more extensive stimulus measures to accelerate the recovery of the country's economy. The latter will be actively started by the new president, Joe Biden, immediately after his inauguration. Expectations and hopes for the best outcome make investors more active in the market.
Most analysts believe that in a couple of months, the positive impact of the vaccine will be noticeable, which means that the pace of economic recovery will accelerate significantly.
Support for the market was also the speech of a member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, which took place yesterday. According to him, the main regulator does not intend to abandon its soft monetary policy in the near future as it does not see clear signs that the labor market and the inflation rate are near the target indicators. This means that the large-scale program of securities repurchase will continue for some time.
Meanwhile, the level of consumer prices in America for the last month of 2020 was 1.4% higher compared to the same indicator of the previous year. This is evidence that inflation showed a more accelerated pace compared to November values, increasing by 1.2%. However, this growth was slightly lower than previously expected by experts, which is also not bad.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.03% (8.22 points) which moved it to 31,060.47 points.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index, by contrast, gained 0.23% (8.65 points). Its current level consolidated at 3,809.84 points.
The NASDAQ Composite index rose 0.43% (56.52 points), bringing them to 13,128.95 points in total.
The stock markets in Europe were mostly positive yesterday. The main stock indicators were not too fast but still moved up, which was recorded at the end of trading.
Market participants were most concerned about the epidemiological situation around Coronavirus infection and its spread in the region. Despite all the attempts of the authorities to speed up the process of mass vaccination of the population, so far they are not very successful and there are many problems and difficulties. Against this background, individual countries have to make decisions on extending strict quarantine measures in their territory. In particular, this was done by the government of the Netherlands, where restrictions are extended for at least another three weeks. The German government is also thinking about this but there is no final decision yet. In Italy, the emergency regime has also been extended until the end of April. In general, the situation continues to be quite tense and causes significant concerns among investors.
Meanwhile, the main regulator of the region, the ECB, did not revise its forecast for economic growth that was made at the end of last year. It is expected that the level of GDP in the Eurozone will increase throughout the coming year to the level of 3.9%. These are very good dynamics, given the fact that according to the preliminary results of 2020, the indicator decreased by 7.3%.
The general index of large enterprises of the European region, STOXX Europe 600, increased by 0.11% and reached the level of 409.07 points.
The German DAX index increased by 0.11%. France's CAC 40 index gained 021%. Spain's IBEX 35 index went up 0.18%. Italy's FTSE MIB index gained 0.43%. But the UK FTSE 100 index was the only one that went into negative territory, reducing by 0.13%.
