Wall Street posted its best session of the year, with the Nasdaq Composite (+2.2%) and Nasdaq-100 (+2.1% to 16,650) posting their biggest gains since November 14 (and their best close since December 21).
Semiconductors stood out with Nvidia +6.4%, AMD +5.5% and Intel +3.3%, as did the 'titans' of the stock market with Amazon +2.7%, Apple +2.4%, Alphabet +2.3%, Microsoft and Meta +1.9%, Tesla +1.3%... not forgetting Nvidia (already mentioned).
Microchip, which plunged -6% in the after-hours after revising its sales forecasts downwards from -15/-20 to -22% in Q4 2023.

The Russell-2000 also performed well, with an advance of almost +2%.

For the S&P500 (+1.4% to 4,763), it was the best session since December 13, and only 0.1% was needed for 2024 to return to the green: if the oil sector hadn't lost -1%, it would have done so (among the main decliners were Halliburton -2.15%, Conoco and Apache -1.8%, Occidental -1.2%).

Boeing's plunge seriously weighed on the Dow Jones, which climbed just 0.58% to 37,683: the index is now 0.1% off its all-time high, and if Boeing hadn't fallen -8%, a new all-time record would have been broken.
Investors largely ignored the comments of a member of the FED's steering committee (Michelle Bowman), who said that there were still significant risks of a rebound in inflation.

Michelle Bowman is one of a small minority of FED officials who believe that the US central bank's job of monetary tightening is not finished: she has systematically voted in favor of all rate hikes and would still vote to tighten the cost of money before considering future easing.

Its point of view is now considered marginal, and Wall Street much prefers to focus on signals of slowing inflation: the heavy fall in oil prices on Monday came at just the right time to reinforce expectations of falling inflation.

WTI oil plunged -4.1% on the NYMEX (to $70.95) as Arabia slashed tariffs in the face of sluggish demand.
Bond markets began to recover in the afternoon (US T-Bond yields eased by -7pts to 3.967%), but this was thwarted by Michelle Bowman's comments, and the '10-yr' is now only -1pt lower this evening, at 4.025%.

On Monday, investors proved their ability to digest a series of economic indicators published on Friday, led by US employment figures, which tempered the prospect of a rapid interest rate cut.

The week is off to a flying start (after a disappointing start to the year), and will be punctuated above all by the publication of US inflation figures, scheduled for Thursday.

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