After its quarterly results, Walmart, one of the world’s largest supermarket groups, has risen slightly on the New York stock exchange. The retail company posted more turnover and profit last quarter than analysts and investors expected.
The company also became more optimistic about the outlook for the rest of the year. Both the turnover forecast and the profit forecast were therefore increased again. The stock rose 0.2 percent.
Investors also chewed over the minutes of the last interest rate meeting of the Federal Reserve. In the notes, the US central bankers indicated that they are still very concerned about inflation and that interest rates have to rise further. That message caused price losses on Wall Street on Wednesday.
New data on the US labour market was also released before the start of trading. For example, it turned out that weekly claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly, which was mainly in line with expectations.
Shortly after the start of trading, the Dow Jones index was 0.3 percent higher at 34,878 points. The broad S&P 500 rose equally hard to 4417 points, and tech gauge Nasdaq gained 0.2 percent to 13,504 points. The three indicators went down in the past two days.
Cisco Systems rose more than 5 percent. The network equipment manufacturer posted more profit last quarter than analysts and investors had expected. Turnover was also higher than expected. CEO Chuck Robbins is also optimistic about artificial intelligence (AI) possibilities.
Ball Corp gained nearly 3 percent. The manufacturer of cans for soft drinks, beer and food sells its aviation business to British defence company BAE Systems for $ 5.6 billion.
Hawaiian Electric lost more than a quarter of its market value shortly after trading in the stock was temporarily halted. According to the business newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, the energy supplier is in talks with companies that specialize in reorganizations. The company, which supplies electricity to the Hawaiian island of Maui, saw more than half of its market value evaporate this week amid suspicions that it may have been the instigator of the devastating fires on the island.
