(CercleFinance.com) – The New York Stock Exchange is expected to open without much change on Monday morning, as investors catch their breath after last week’s ‘rally’ which saw the indices post some of their best scores since 2020 .
Half an hour before the opening, the futures contracts on the major New York indices advanced from 0.1% to 0.5%, announcing a very slight increase in the start of the session.
US equity markets performed very well last week, with the Dow Jones gaining 4.2% in five days, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed more than 8%.
“We had not seen such performances on the indices since November 2020, when Pfizer announced the success of clinical trials on its vaccine against Covid”, recalls a speaker.
This upward movement was largely helped by the announcement of a sharper-than-expected slowdown in inflation in October, which eased pressure on the Fed to continue its ultra-economic monetary policy. restrictive.
With inflation decelerating, investors will be able to take a breather and once again focus on the economic data, with the hope that it confirms the prospect of a ‘soft landing’ so dear to the markets.
This scenario would be characterized by a slowdown in growth and a drop in inflation, although without a recession and without a spectacular rise in unemployment.
Wednesday’s retail sales figures will be important from this perspective in order to gauge the health of consumption, which accounts for two-thirds of economic activity in the United States.
Despite the weakening of household confidence – due to the surge in inflation – labor income grew at a good pace in October, which should support their spending.
Pending Wednesday’s high point, the week will be punctuated by other indicators such as industrial producer prices and the New York Fed’s Empire State index, scheduled for tomorrow.
The net decline in volatility also suggests a return to calm after the severe shocks of early autumn.
The index measuring the volatility of the S&P 500, often referred to as the ‘low index’, thus fell by 8% last week and is now 33% below its recent highs, reached on 12 October.
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