Wall Street: This week, stock indices recovered a large part of the losses from the beginning of the month

On Wall Street, stock prices rose on Thursday for the fifth consecutive day, with the technology sector again leading in gains as the market recovers from a sharp decline at the beginning of the month.

The Dow Jones jumped 306 points or 1.23 percent, to 25,200 points, while the S&P 500 strengthened by 1.21 percent, to 2,731 points, and the Nasdaq index by 1.58 percent, to 7,256 points.

On the world’s largest stock exchange, indices rose for the fifth consecutive day, continuing the recovery from last week’s sharp decline, with stock prices strengthening in 10 of the 11 most important sectors of the S&P 500 index.

>>> Wall Street hits record again!

Only the energy sector fell, due to a drop in oil prices, while the technology sector led the gainers, as it did the day before. This sector also led in gains last year, thanks to strong growth in the technology market and earnings of companies such as Apple, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Netflix, and Facebook.

In the last five days, the S&P 500 index has strengthened by 5.6 percent, but it is still down 4.9 percent compared to its record level reached on January 26.

Yesterday, as the day before, investors ignored signs of rising inflation and focused on quarterly business results of companies, which had been in the background in recent weeks. The vast majority of companies in the S&P 500 index reported better-than-expected financial results in the last quarter of last year.

>>> Wall Street like Agrokor

This year, thanks to, among other things, the recent tax reform, further profit growth is expected, with analysts in a Reuters survey estimating that earnings per share of companies in the S&P 500 index will rise by 18.9 percent in 2018.

“Due to market nervousness in the last two weeks, really good business results of companies were in the background. In recent days, the focus has been on inflation data, which is rising, but the market has resisted this,” says Leo Grohowski, director at BNY Mellon Wealth Management.

Yesterday, yields on U.S. bonds also fell below the highest level in the last four years, and it was the strong rise in those yields two weeks ago that raised concerns about the acceleration of interest rate hikes in the U.S., which had strongly pressured stock markets at that time.

However, thanks to the growth in corporate earnings and the stable strengthening of the world’s largest economies, this week, stock indices on Wall Street have recovered a large part of the losses from the beginning of February.

Stock prices also rose on European exchanges yesterday. The London FTSE index strengthened by 0.29 percent, to 7,234 points, while the Frankfurt DAX rose by 0.06 percent, to 12,346 points, and the Paris CAC by 1.11 percent, to 5,222 points.