(CercleFinance.com) – By ending clearly ‘in the green’, Wall Street illustrates one of the most classic scenarios on the eve of a session of the ‘3 witches’ which concludes a stock market month placed almost exclusively under the sign of increase, in line with the 15 weeks of increase that preceded it (this would be the longest weekly bullish series for a century and no longer 52 years).
Because it is indeed a 16th positive week which is taking shape with – like a symbol – a new historic record for the most emblematic index, the S&P500 (+0.6% to 5,030 Points) which improves its previous one by 3.4 Points closing zenith of February 9 (5,026.6Pts).
Also note the relaxation of the ‘VIX’ which falls back below the 14 mark: the ‘stress blow’ of Tuesday following the ‘CPI’ practically never existed.
The Dow Jones rose +0.9% to 38,773 and was only 0.07% away from beating its closing record on Monday (38,798).
The past week in any case has been very positive and the post-session futures foreshadow a very positive Friday session, with a Nasdaq-100 (+0.2% this Thursday evening) which should reopen with a gain of +0, 3% towards 17,900, in the wake of Applied Materials which soared by +10% in electronic transactions, thanks to its quarterly vouchers and positive expectations.
The stars of the day were not semiconductors (the ‘SOXX’ fell by -0.1%) but rather the manufacturers of electric vehicles with Tesla +6.2% and Lucid (+5.2% ).
The news remains reassuring on the US economy front, with the notable exception of retail sales which clearly disappointed by falling more sharply than expected (-0.8%).
But this is offset by all the other figures of the day: manufacturing activity recovered spectacularly in New York State in February as the local Fed’s ‘Empire State’ index climbed 41 points compared to the month of January to settle at -2.4.
The ‘Philly Fed’ index returned to positive territory with a gain of +16 points in February, reaching 5.2, the first positive value since August.
However, only 27% of companies responding to the survey reported an increase in their activity this month (but this is better than the 16% in December).
The employment sub-component fell 9 points to -10.3 in February, its lowest level since May 2020.
The Department of Commerce announces an increase of 0.4% in US business inventories in December 2023 compared to the previous month, after a decline of 0.1% in November (confirmed compared to the initial estimate).
Sales of companies in the United States also increased by 0.4% sequentially in December.
On the other hand, US industrial production fell by -0.1% and the industrial capacity utilization rate fell by -0.2% to 77.50.
New unemployment registrations (data closely monitored by the FED) have declined: the Department of Labor announces 212,000 new registrations for unemployment benefits in the United States the week of February 5, a figure down by 8,000 compared to the revised figure of the previous week (220,000 instead of the 218,000 initially announced).
The four-week moving average – more representative of the underlying trend – stood at 218,500 this same week, an increase of 5,750 compared to the revised average of the previous week.
The markets still mostly think that the Fed will not reduce its rates before June, but the hypothesis of a reduction as early as May does not seem to be completely ruled out (consensus at 40%) after today’s statistics.
T-Bonds are relaxing a little after signing one of their worst sessions since October 2023 on Tuesday. The yield on ten-year Treasuries fell by -3 basis points to 4.235%.
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