Wall Street posted its best session of the year, with the Nasdaq Composite (+2.2% to 14,844) and the Nasdaq-100 (+2.11% to 16,650) posting their strongest gains since November 14 (and their best close since December 21).

Semiconductors stood out with Nvidia +6.4%, AMD +5.5% and Intel +3.3%, as did the 'titans' of the stock market with Amazon +2.7%, Apple +2.4%, Alphabet +2.3%, Microsoft and Meta +1.9%, Tesla +1.3%... not forgetting Nvidia (already mentioned).

Microchip, which plunged -6% in the after-hours after revising its sales forecasts downwards from -15/-20 to -22% for the fourth quarter of 2023.

The Russell-2000 also performed well, with an advance of almost +2%, to 1,989.

For the S&P500 (+1.41% to 4.763), this was the best session since December 13, and 2024 was only 0.1% away from returning to the green: if the oil sector hadn't lost -1%, it would have done so (among the main decliners were Halliburton -2.1%, Conoco and Apache -1.8%, Occidental -1.2%).

Boeing's plunge seriously weighed on the Dow Jones, which climbed just 0.58% to 37,683: the index is now 0.1% off its all-time high, and had Boeing not fallen by -8%, a new all-time record would have been comfortably beaten.

Investors largely ignored the comments made by a member of the Federal Reserve's steering committee (Michelle Bowman), who said that there were still significant risks of a rebound in inflation.

Michelle Bowman is one of a small minority of Fed members who believe that the US central bank's job of monetary tightening is not finished: she has systematically voted in favor of all rate hikes and would still vote to tighten the cost of money before considering future easing.

Its point of view is now considered marginal, and Wall Street would much rather focus on signals of slowing inflation: Monday's sharp fall in oil prices came at just the right time to reinforce expectations of falling inflation.

WTI oil fell -4.1% on the NYMEX (to $70.95) as Saudi Arabia cut its tariffs in the face of sluggish demand.

The bond markets began to recover in the afternoon (the yield on US T-Bonds eased by -7 basis points to 3.967%), but this was thwarted by Michelle Bowman's comments, and the '10-yr' was only down -1 basis point on Monday evening, to 4.025%.

On Monday, investors proved their ability to digest a series of economic indicators published on Friday, led by US employment figures, which tempered the prospect of a rapid reduction in interest rates.

This week, which is off to a flying start (after a disappointing start to the year), will be punctuated above all by the publication of US inflation figures, scheduled for Thursday.

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