Wall Street driven by robust US economic data

The economic barometer of the United States prompted rising prices on Wall Street on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq indices, primarily populated with technology stocks, showed a slightly weaker tendency.

The economic wind conditions in Philadelphia, as reflected by the Philly Fed Index, registered a stronger improvement in February than anticipated. In parallel, the industrial sentiment in the state of New York also brightened beyond forecasts in the same month. Additional tailwinds were provided by the decline in initial jobless claims from the previous week, which exceeded expectations. However, the positive developments were somewhat overshadowed by the greater-than-expected loss in retail sales at the start of the year and the unexpected contraction in industrial production in January.

The Dow Jones Industrial, the most prominent barometer of Wall Street, recorded a gain of 0.47 percent during the trading session, lifting the index to 38,605.45 points. The S&P 500 registered a rise of 0.24 percent to 5,012.28 points, whereas the Nasdaq 100 had to accept a minimal decline of 0.18 percent to 17,775.30 points.

Thus, the leading indices moved just below their recently reached record highs. These high-level benchmarks had suffered slightly in the wake of the published inflation data on Tuesday, which tempered expectations for an imminent reduction in key interest rates.

In terms of individual stocks, Cisco was particularly in the focus within the Dow. The provider of networking equipment for the telecommunications sector announced declining revenues and profits for the second fiscal quarter and its revenue forecast for the current quarter fell below the average analyst estimate. As a result, the workforce is to be reduced by about five percent, causing the company's stock to fall by 2.6 percent.

Deere & Co, as the laggard in the S&P 100, had to accept losses of 4.7 percent. Despite a first fiscal quarter that solidly exceeded market expectations, the lowered annual target caused disappointment, explained UBS analyst Steven Fisher as the reason for the share deficits.

Notable losses were also recorded for the shares of smaller firms like Fastly and Nu Skin Enterprises, which saw declines of up to or even over 20 percent. Fastly, active in the cloud computing segment, failed to convince with its revenue expectations. Nu Skin, in the field of cosmetics and nutritional supplements, reported faltering quarterly revenues and cut the dividend. In contrast, Crocs countered with an unexpectedly strong profit in the last quarter and a hopeful outlook on earnings per share, posting an increase of 4.9 percent.

An analysis by JPMorgan helped the Coinbase stock gain 6.5 percent. Analyst Kenneth Worthington saw the significant increase in the Bitcoin price as a positive effect for the cryptocurrency market and consequently for the performance of the trading platform, leading him to upgrade the stock from "Underweight" to "Neutral."