(CercleFinance.com) – The New York Stock Exchange is moving without much trend on Thursday for the last session of what should be a second consecutive quarter of strong growth.
At midday, the Dow Jones gained less than 0.1% to 39,777.4 points, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.1% to 16,381.9 points. The S&P 500 index, for its part, gained 0.1% to 5,251.6 points.
Volumes remain low and movements limited for this last session of the first quarter, since the markets will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday.
The S&P 500, which this quarter crossed the threshold of 5,000 points for the first time in its history, has so far recorded an increase of just over 10% since January 1.
At its current levels, it is only five points away from its all-time high of 5261.1 points.
‘Market sentiment has reached a point of euphoria’, Citi strategists point out this morning, based on their in-house indicator, the Levkovich index, previously known as the Panic/Euphoria model.
‘The equity markets had a solid quarter and while it is true that a lot of good news is now integrated into prices, we believe that a continuation of the upward movement is possible’, judge the Capital teams for their part. Economics.
Main economic indicator of the day, US GDP growth was revised upwards in the 4th quarter, to 3.4% compared to 3.2% in second reading.
The Department of Labor, for its part, announced 210,000 new registrations for unemployment benefits last week, a figure down by 2,000 compared to the previous week.
Investors are now waiting for PCE inflation, the Fed’s most closely watched measure, to be released tomorrow while markets are closed due to Good Friday.
On a sectoral level, investors are taking their profits on securities linked to communications (-0.5%) and technology (-0.2%), big winners of the quarter, to position themselves on energy (+0 .7%) and real estate (+0.5%).
On the bond market, yields on American government bonds are almost unchanged after their decline in recent days, due to the increasingly real prospect of a rate cut in June.
That of ten-year Treasuries, the main benchmark for government bond markets, is stable at 4.29%.
Crude prices are up slightly, with light American crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) increasing by 1.5% to around $82.6. Over the entire quarter, WTI gained more than 15%.
The price of gold is trading at a new all-time high, at $2,236.7 per ounce, and is heading towards an increase of 7% over the entire first quarter.
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