Wall Street opens in green and the Dow Jones rises 0.02%

Wall Street opened this Wednesday in green and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, its main indicator, rose a slight 0.02%, after a quiet night in which there were no significant factors that influenced the market.

Ten minutes after the trading floor opened, the Dow Jones stood at 37,553 points and the selective S&P 500 rose 0.06% to 4,777 points.

For its part, the Nasdaq market composite index, in which large technology companies are listed, rose 0.15% to 15,096 points.

The three indices remained without major changes compared to their session on Tuesday, when the market resumed its activity after the Christmas holidays and entered the last trading week of 2023.

The rise in futures reflects the possibility that the year will end with the phenomenon known as the ‘Santa Claus rally’, which refers to the tendency of US stocks to rise during the period that includes the last five sessions of the year and the first two of the next.

On Friday, the S&P 500 posted its eighth consecutive weekly advance and its longest streak since 2017, while the Dow Jones and Nasdaq also posted their eighth week of gains.

Market optimism responds to economic data indicating that inflation is approaching the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) 2% target, as well as the possibility of interest rate cuts.

Scott Wren, chief global markets strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, warned CNBC that the market would be being too optimistic, especially if the central bank makes rate cuts later than expected.

By sectors, the greatest losses were for the public services sector (-0.17%) and the financial sector (-0.12%), while the greatest gains were for the non-essential goods sector (0.54%) and that of communication (0.16%).

Among the 30 Dow Jones stocks, the increases in Intel (1%) and Caterpillar (0.63%) and the losses in Merck (-0.36%) and Walgreens (-0.34%) stood out.