And 15! Wall Street has brilliantly completed the longest string of weekly rises in 52 years (it's stratospheric) and finished at the zenith on the eve of the weekend, which was a very positive indication in terms of momentum (the main compass of the algos).

And traders feel perfectly 'comfortable' with this bullish rally, precisely because it shows no signs of fragility: at no point do they assume that such perfection of the uptrend is anything but natural, and that the indices could be completely piloted, and any 'pullback' literally neutralized.

Commenting on the cascade of records on the US indices (three in a row on the S&P500 and Nasdaq-100, two on the Dow Jones), the managers describe the perpetual upward movement as justified: 80% of the 300 companies that published earnings reports came in better than expected, which is above the average of 75%.

Questioned after the day's zenith close about the market's high valuation, most managers replied that they would take advantage of the slightest "breath" to strengthen their portfolios.

For lack of "stats" to inspire Wall Street, Sam Altman, head of Open A.I, is talking about raising $7,000 billion (yes, seven thousand billion) to carry out his development projects: he did not specify over what period of time the biggest market appeal in history and in the industrial era should take place.... in any case, it is comparable to the quantity of money printed by Western central banks during the Covid period.

The main US indices - with the exception of the Dow Jones, which fell by -0.14% to 38,671 - smashed new absolute records, and not in a timid manner, since the S&P500 (+0.57%) climbed during the session to touch 5,030 (i.e. +1.4% weekly and more than +5% in 2024). The Nasdaq-100 climbed +1% to 17,962 (+2.2% weekly, +6.85% since January 1 and +26% since October 30, 2023) and the 18,000 mark is within reach this Monday.

The Nasdaq Composite soared +1.25% to 15,990 (+2.3% weekly and +6.5% since January 1, i.e. +65% annualized!) in the wake - obviously - of Nvidia with +3.6% and already +45% in five weeks (its capitalization has jumped to $1,800 billion).

Other stars of the day were Nvidia's rivals: Applied Materials with +6.9%, Lam Research and MongoDb with +5.5%, foundry KLA with +5.1%, not forgetting ASML +2.9%, Palo Alto +2.7%, Datadog +2.6%, NXP +2.5%, AMD and Intel +1.9%. The titans of the stock market, the 'GAFAMs', shone once again, with Microsoft +1.6%, Alphabet +2% and Amazon +2.7%.

The past week also revealed major disparities in global growth, with the US economy showing insolent health, far ahead of Europe and China, which are tending, at best, to stagnate.

With the prospect of much stronger-than-expected activity, a "soft landing" in the US in 2024 is becoming almost improbable: it's not even certain that the Fed will "pivot" in May if the labor market remains at its zenith (with rising wages in sight) and inflation resurfaces.

In the meantime, Wall Street continues to ignore the tensions in the rates market, with the most optimistic seeing them as proof of the robustness of the US economy. T-Bond yields continue to soar, with 10-year yields topping 4.18%, their highest level since the beginning of the year.

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