The facade of the New York Stock Exchange (right) (AFP/ANGELA WEISS)
The New York Stock Exchange ended in disorganized order on Friday, with the Dow Jones snatching, at the last minute, a third record in a row at the close, ignoring cautious comments from members of the American central bank (Fed).
The Dow Jones gained 0.15% and finished at 37,305.16 points, a third consecutive all-time high. the Nasdaq index gained 0.35% and the broader S&P 500 index finished close to balance (-0.01%).
“Why stop now?” commented Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com. “That seems to be the implicit question the market is asking.”
The session started with a scent of consolidation, after a sequence which saw the Dow Jones rise by more than 15% since the end of October.
“The catalyst (for this consolidation) came from statements by members of the Fed,” explained Patrick O’Hare.
The president of the Fed branch in New York, John Williams, opened the ball on Friday by affirming that the members of the monetary policy committee of the institution were not yet talking about rate cuts.
He contradicted Fed President Jerome Powell, who said the opposite on Wednesday during his press conference following the Federal Reserve meeting.
John Williams was followed by his Atlanta counterpart, Raphael Bostic, who also tried to temper the enthusiasm of the New York market by counting on two rate cuts in 2024, while the members of the Fed in their group sees, on average, three.
But investors ultimately paid little attention to these assertions, and the Dow Jones ended up returning to the green. The three indexes also recorded a seventh consecutive week of gains.
“The market still believes that the Fed will come around to its vision of things, rather than the other way around,” according to Patrick O’Hare.
However, operators now anticipate no fewer than six rate cuts next year.
Still seduced by the prospect of monetary easing and encouraged by the slowdown in inflation and what looks like a smooth landing for the American economy, investors also ignored the mixed indicators of the day.
Industrial production increased by only 0.2% over one month in November, compared to 0.3% expected, and the activity index in the manufacturing sector, established by S&P, stood at 48.2% in December, against 49.5% expected.
Imitating the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq escaped the consolidation movement thanks to the stars of artificial intelligence, notably Microsoft (+1.31%) and semiconductor manufacturers Nvidia (+1.12%), Broadcom (+ 2.10%) and Intel (+2.17%).
The flagship index of the Electronic Stock Exchange was also supported by the semi-wholesale supermarket chain Costco (+4.45%), which is one of the ten largest weightings of the Nasdaq 100.
The action of the group from Issaquah (Washington State) was sought after the announcement, Thursday after the market, of results better than expectations.
The group’s financial director, Richard Galanti, indicated that Costco had made price reductions, mainly linked to the normalization of transport costs.
Unlike technology stocks, so-called defensive stocks, that is to say less sensitive to the economic situation, had a difficult day.
Johnson & Johnson (-1.09%), Coca-Cola (-0.75%) and McDonald’s (-0.95%) all ended up clearly in the red.
The electronic document signature specialist DocuSign soared (+12.46%) after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was studying its possible buyout by investors.
The Chinese manufacturer of electric vehicles XPeng was fled (-7.54%) after reporting the sale by the e-commerce platform Taobao, a subsidiary of Alibaba (+2.76%), of 25 million of its shares .
The cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase suffered (-3.73%). The American market watchdog, the SEC, refused his request to create specific rules for cryptocurrencies, considering that the existing framework was sufficient.
© 2023 AFP
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