The main financial news on Wednesday was the US inflation figures for April. The annual growth of consumer prices fell to 4.9 percent, compared to an expected 5.0 percent. In contrast, core inflation of 5.5 percent was equal to the consensus estimate. In comparison, the Fed’s key interest rate is 5.0 percent.
– This is going in the right direction, as it also happened last month, said Anders Johansen, chief strategist at Danske Bank Norge after the publication of US inflation figures.
On the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq index closed up 1.04 percent to 12,306.44 points, while the Dow Jones index fell 0.09 percent, to 33,531.00 points. The S&P 500 index recovered well and closed up 0.45 percent at 4,137.59 points.
The 10-year US government bond yield is 3.43 percent, while the Vix, also known as the fear index, fell 5.36 percent to 16.74.
The electric car and artificial intelligence are in focus
The electric car rally has been replaced by a technical rally following Wednesday’s news from Google.
After Tuesday’s closing time, electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive provided its quarterly numbers, which lifted the stock 9.1 percent in the opening minutes. The rally later slowed and the stock ended up 1.8 percent.
Google announced more artificial intelligence news on Wednesday that sent Google parent company Alphabet’s prices skyrocketing. Alphabet shares ended the day up 4.1 percent, at 111.75. This is the highest level since August 2022.
Oil and cryptocurrency
On Wednesday, there was a huge impact in the cryptocurrency market after the release of US inflation figures for April.
Bitcoin initially rose more than 2 percent to $28,250.29 after publication. At around 19:00 Norwegian time, things completely turned around and bitcoin fell into the red. The price of one bitcoin is now 27,709.20, up 0.19 percent.
New figures from the US Department of Energy’s statistics wing show that US crude oil inventories rose by 3.0 million barrels to 462.6 million barrels last week. According to TDN Direkt, a decrease of 0.9 million barrels was expected.
A barrel of North Sea oil is trading for $76.45, down 1.26 percent, while West Texas Intermediate oil is trading for $72.65, down 1.43 percent.
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