(CercleFinance.com) – The most anticipated US figure of the week ended in an absolute non-event on Wall Street, with zero closing scores: Nasdaq +0.004% (thanks to Netflix with +2.8%), S&P500 -0.07% (weighed down by the energy sector), Dow Jones +0.04% to 37,711, its second best close in history after the 37,715 of January 2 (thanks to the +2.8% of Salesforce).
NB: the Dow Jones has remained locked since December 14 within an incredibly narrow range (37,250/37,700), with 90% of trading concentrated between 37,400 and 37,700, or less than 1% amplitude (since 12/21 , or 14 sessions, a record for immobility).
The US bond market, after several hours of post-CPI stagnation (beyond 4.03% for the ’10-year’) relaxed from 7:45 p.m. to end with a substantial easing of -5 basis points at 3.978%.
Wall Street was not moved by the warnings in the face of expectations of rate cuts from March from three influential members of the Federal Reserve: John Williams, the president of the New York Fed, Loretta Mester , that of the Cleveland Fed, and Tom Barkin, that of the Richmond Fed.
It’s hard to guess that the session was punctuated by the most anticipated figures of the week, namely those for consumer prices in the United States, which came out slightly above the consensus.
The most closely monitored component, the Core CPI, stood at +0.3% (in line with expectations, but +3.9% on an annualized basis, compared to 3.8% expected), with the overall rate coming in at +0, 3% (compared to +0.2% anticipated) and +3.4% annualized (compared to 3.2% expected).
Otherwise, applications for unemployment benefits remained almost stable last week, falling by -1,000 weekly to stand at 202,000, which was equivalent to the margin of uncertainty.
The ‘CPI’ is not establishing itself as a ‘game changer’ and Wall Street will perhaps react to ‘macro’ data completely unrelated to inflation, or to the disclosure of the first quarterly, those of JP Morgan , Bank of America or Wells Fargo, which will open the results show this Friday.
Note that Microsoft (+0.5% in the end at $284) briefly stole – during a few minutes of trading – first place in terms of capitalization from Apple which regained its leading position at the last minute with a closing at -0 .3% to $185.6 (after -1% during the session and a ‘capi’ of $2,866.5 billion at 10:00 p.m.). Tesla lost -2.9% following the announcement of the shutdown of certain production lines in Berlin.
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