More Stories

Informist, Friday, May 22, 2026                                      Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

---

Equity Alert: US indices gain for second day albeit with muted moves

 

MUMBAI--0745 IST--Indices on Wall Street extended gains for the second straight session. Some semiconductor stocks lent support to the market but trade remained largely muted. The 'magnificent seven' stocks were largely flat in the trading session, with the exception of Nvidia Corp. falling almost 2% and Alphabet rising a little over 1%. Brent crude oil prices falling to around $103 per barrel also likely helped limit some losses. 

 

"The silver lining is that from a market perspective, the fragile ceasefire is still holding. It's positive there's still, according to news reports, the possibility of an off-ramp. Oil and market sentiment is very sensitive to every headline," Marc Dizard, chief investment officer at Huntington Wealth Managemen, told Reuters.

 

Among the major stocks in focus was Walmart. The retailer's shares tanked over 7% Thursday after the company retained its guidance for the full year. The company sees net sales growing 3.5-4.5%, and earnings per share to be between $2.75 and $2.85. "If the current elevated cost environment persists, we'd expect somewhat higher retail price inflation in Q2 and the second half of the year," Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said on a call with analysts, NBC News reported. 

 

On the macroecnomic front, the number of people in the US filing for fresh jobless claims fell to 209,000 in the week ended May 16 from 212,000 reported last week. The Wall Street Journal had estimated initial jobless claims at 210,000. Continuing claims, meanwhile, were 1.78 million in the week ended May 9. In the previous week, continuing claims were revised to 1.78 million. The data on unemployment does signify a stable labour market but it will be important to see how the impact of the war in West Asia changes course for the US labour market. 

 

Following were the closing levels of major US indices on Thursday:

 

US Indices	Levels	Change in %
Dow Jones Industrial Average	50285.66	0.55
NASDAQ Composite	26293.098	0.09
S&P 500	7445.72	0.17

 

(Ruchira Kagita)

 

US$1 = INR 96.20

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

All prices from National Stock Exchange, unless otherwise specified.

All percentage changes for share prices are rounded off to the nearest whole number; percentage changes for index values are rounded off to one decimal place.

All times are Indian Standard Time.

 

NSE: National Stock Exchange
NYSE: New York Stock Exchange
NYMEX: New York Mercantile Exchange
SEBI: Securities and Exchange Board of India
RBI: Reserve Bank of India

Internet links:
Securities and Exchange Board of India - http://www.sebi.gov.in
Bombay Stock Exchange - http://www.bseindia.com
National Stock Exchange of India - http://www.nseindia.com
Directory of Indian government websites - http://goidirectory.nic.in
Indian Ministry of Finance - http://www.finmin.nic.in
Reserve Bank of India - http://rbi.org.in
Controller General of Accounts, Government of India - http://www.cga.nic.in
Government's Press Information Bureau - http://www.pib.nic.in

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2026. All rights reserved.