Wall Street back on top!

With the exception of the Dow Jones (despite a gain of +0.55% on Thursday, with Boeing recovering +4.2%), the main US indices have returned to positive territory since January 1st.

the S&P500 gained +0.9% to 4,780 (i.e. +0.25% over 2024) and is back within 0.5% of its all-time record: airlines have shone, as has the leisure/casino/hotel sector....
The rise was slowed by the heaviness of the regional banks (with Discovery Fnl -10.5%), 'energy' stocks and the automotive sector (Gal Motor and Tesla)

The Nasdaq composite (+1.35%) has now gained 0.3% since January 1, and the Nasdaq-100 (+1.5% to 16,980) has gained +0.93% annualized, its outperformance being directly linked to semiconductors.

The 'SOXX' index jumped +3.3% this evening (back to the absolute zenith at 579Pts) in the wake of Fastenal +7%, followed by Applied Materials, Marvell Techno and ASML up +4.5%, Qualcomm +4.3%, Microchip with +3.4%, not forgetting the inexorable surge of Nvidia (+2% this evening), which has climbed +15% in 15 days, setting a new record above $571, with a cap of over $1,400 billion.400 billion.

The Nasdaq and S&P once again benefited from the appetite for the "Fantastic 7", with Microsoft +1.1%, Amazon +1.2%, Alphabet +1.5%, Meta +2.1% and Apple +3.3%.... only Tesla lost ground with -1.7%.

For the second session in a row, Wall Street digested with disarming ease the persistent tension in short and long rates in the USA.

T-Bonds remained in the red (+4pts to 4.150% on the '10-yr', +5pts on the '2-yr' which peaked at 4.36%): they widened their losses after the publication of the 'figures of the day', which were rather contradictory in the USA.

The fall in the Philly FED activity index (expected at -7, it came out at -10.6) was contradicted by a sharp drop of -16,000 new registrations for unemployment benefits in the USA at the end of the week from January 8 to 13, to 187,000, one of the lowest scores in the last 50 years (worthy of the purest 'full employment').

According to Department of Labor figures, the four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 203,250 for the same week, down by 4,750 on the previous week's revised average.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits fell by 26,000 to 1,806,000 in the week to January 1, the most recent period available for this statistic.

And let's not forget the +1.9% rise in US building permits (to 1.495 million), while housing starts (-4.3%) fell less than expected, to 1.46 million compared with an estimated 1.43 million.

The US real estate sector continues its mixed trend, with the recent easing of interest rates failing to revive demand held back by historically high prices and low inventories.

The enduring resilience of the US labor market is likely to justify more intransigent rhetoric concerning a possible loosening of financial conditions by FED members, who are keeping a close eye on inflation (the figures are moving in the right direction) and employment (lots of employees = lots of purchasing power and a risk of pressure on prices).

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