(CercleFinance.com) – The return of risk appetite was confirmed on Friday, after the episode of great volatility experienced in recent weeks: the Dow Jones climbed by nearly 1.8% to 33,213 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained more than 3.3% to 12,131 points.
Investors continued to enjoy the relief from the release of Fed ‘minutes’ earlier in the week as the central bank left the door open for a potential pause in its rate hikes by the end of the week. of the year.
After having lined up seven consecutive weeks of decline, the American markets were able to record their first weekly increase since the end of March, despite statistics likely to justify an increase in interest rates.
In fact, US household spending increased by 0.9% in April compared to the previous month, a stronger than expected increase which therefore reflected consumption for the moment little affected by the surge in inflation.
It must be said that the most anticipated figure concerned the annualized rate of increase in the PCE price index (‘basket of the housewife’), which fell by 0.3 points to +6.3% in data. total, and at +4.9% excluding energy and food.
On the other hand, US consumer confidence deteriorated in May, according to the University of Michigan index which finally came out at 58.4 for May, revised from a preliminary estimate of 59.1, and after 65.2 in April.
In terms of stocks, Dell Technologies soared 12.9% as the IT group beat market expectations in the past quarter on the strength of its business PCs and networking solutions.
Still among the results published, the operators welcomed those of the software publisher Autodesk (+10.3%), the clothing chain Gap (+4.3%), and to a lesser extent those of the distributor by stores -Costco warehouses (+1.2%).
Against the trend, Citigroup fell nearly 1%, against the backdrop of a downgrading of opinion at Credit Suisse from ‘outperformance’ to ‘neutral’, a recent rise in the stock having taken it close to its target price of $58.
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