(CercleFinance.com) – Wall Street ends without a trend and seems to have opted for the ‘algorithmic straitjacket’ from the first exchanges: the bets were made from 3:35 p.m. and the scores then froze for more than 6 hours.
But by freezing the situation, the US indices were spared volatility which could lead to a ‘complicated’ scenario in the event of a further decline: it would have been the 7th for the Dow Jones which ultimately gained +0.17%.
The S&P-500 dropped 0.21%, to 5,051 points, returning to its levels of February 22 and the Nasdaq Composite crumbled by 0.12% to 15,865 (Tesla fell again by -2.7%, Apple dropped -2%), which confirms the sinking of the level of 15,950 Points (next objective at 15,580, the ‘gap’ of February 21).
The Nasdaq-100 finished stable (+0.04%) at 17,713, thanks to semiconductors, notably ASML +2.3%, KLA +2.2%, AMD +2%, Applied Materials +1.9% , without forgetting Nvidia with +1.6%.
Jerome Powell’s statements had a neutral impact: according to him, recent data on inflation in the United States did not give enough confidence to central bank officials to quickly reduce interest rates.
The Fed may have to maintain interest rates at 5.25% ‘longer than expected’ (i.e. more than the 6/9 months preceding a 30-year decline): a rate cut in June appears more and more uncertain
in view of the retail sales figures in the United States which came out above expectations on Monday (at +0.7%).
The yield on 10-year Treasuries ended at 4.68% (i.e. +5Pts), a peak of almost five months (and +83Pts base since January 1), the ’30-year’ peaked at 4.800% (4.767% this evening), the ‘2 years’ is close to the ‘5%’ (+5Pts at 4.988% and 5.01% during the session).
The increase in the ’30 years’ (+75Pts since January 1) seems to have strongly penalized real estate:
the Commerce Department reports a 14.7% plunge in housing starts in the United States in March compared to the previous month, to 1,321,000 at an annualized rate, after a jump of 12.7% in FEBRUARY.
Building permits for American housing – supposed to foreshadow future housing starts – fell by 4.3% to 1,458,000 last month. Finally, housing completions fell by 13.5% to 1,469,000 (no ‘weather factor’ to explain this decline).
Industrial production in the United States increased again by 0.4% in March (just like in February), including a 3.1% jump in automobile production (vehicles and equipment).
Still according to the Federal Reserve which publishes these figures, the capacity utilization rate in American industry increased by 0.2 points to 78.4% in March, i.e. a level 1.2 points lower than its long-term average (1972-2023).
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