The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 was recently expected to be around 0.3 percent higher.

In the US, the number of weekly initial jobless claims rose surprisingly, while analysts had expected a decline on average. The rapid rise in producer prices continued. In December, prices at the manufacturer level increased by 9.7 percent compared to the same month last year. However, analysts had expected a slightly higher increase of 9.8 percent.

According to a report by the US Federal Reserve, the US economy grew at a moderate pace at the end of 2021. The growth will be dampened by persistent problems in the supply chains and a shortage of labor, it said in the economic report published on Wednesday (Beige Book). Despite the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the corona virus, consumer spending continued to grow. Companies are generally optimistic.

Among the individual values, the shares of Boeing were in the spotlight with a pre-market increase of 2.3 percent. According to insiders, the aircraft manufacturer’s 737 Max model is about to return to the Chinese market. Commercial flights could start again in January, as reported by the Bloomberg news agency, citing people familiar with the matter. The 737 Max is currently Boeing‘s best-selling model and an important profit maker. The series had been banned from take-off since March 2019 after two devastating plane crashes with a total of 346 deaths worldwide.

Delta Air Lines shares advanced 2.2 percent early on. Despite foreseeable losses as a result of the spread of the Omikron variant, the US airline wants to be profitable again from March and make a “significant profit” in 2022. Around the Christmas holidays and the turn of the year, Delta, like other airlines in the USA, had to cancel several hundred flights. The reasons were the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus and extremely bad weather./