(CercleFinance.com) – The Dow Jones rose 1.2% to 38,676, the S&P500 increased by approximately the same to 5,128 and the Nasdaq Composite soared 2% to 16,156 on Friday’s session alone, thus allowing for the three American indices to post a second week of increases.
They have once again demonstrated that ‘bad news is good news’ since the main issue once again becomes the prospect of monetary easing by the Fed (from September) and not the good health of the American economy.
According to the employment report released before the opening, it only generated 175,000 non-agricultural jobs in April, a number well below market expectations which were on average around 250,000.
The unemployment rate increased by 0.1 point to 3.9%, where economists had hoped for stability, while the labor force participation rate remained at 62.7%, and average hourly income increased at an annual rate of 3.9%.
Furthermore, if the S&P Global composite PMI index was revised upwards to 51.3 for last month, the ISM services index fell to 49.4, thus plunging back into contraction territory for the first time since the end of 2022.
Bond markets applauded today’s weaker than expected macroeconomic data, with yields falling by seven basis points on both the 10-year to 4.501% and the 2-year to 4.806%.
The session was also marked by the outperformance of the Apple share with its +6%, the technological firm having announced Thursday evening, on the sidelines of its quarterly, the most titanic share buyback plan in the history of capitalism (110 billion of dollars).
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