And 15! Wall Street has brilliantly completed the longest weekly uptrend in 52 years (it's stratospheric), and is ending at the zenith on the eve of the weekend, which is 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 sign 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 record highs on US indices (3 in a row on the S&P500 and Nasdaq-100, 2 for the Dow Jones, on February 7th and February), managers describe the perpetual upward movement as justified: 80% of the 300 companies that reported unveiled better-than-expected results, 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.
In the absence of "stats" to inspire Wall Street, Sam Altman, head of Open A.I is talking about raising $7,000 billion (yes, seven thousand billion is stratospheric) 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's comparable to the amount of money printed by Western central banks during the COVID period (2020/2021).

The main US indices - with the exception of the Dow Jones, which fell by -0.15% - set new all-time records, and not just timidly, as the S&P500 (+0.57%) climbed to within touching distance of 5,030Pts (i.e. +1.4% weekly and more than +5% in 2024).
The Nasdaq-100 climbs +1% to 17,962 (+2.2% weekly, +6.85% since January 1 and +26% since October 30, 2023) and 18,000 is within reach on Monday.

The Nasdaq Composite soars +1.2% to 16,000.000 (+2.3% weekly and +6.5% since January 1, i.e. +65% on an annualized basis!) in the wake - obviously - of Nvidia with +3.6% and already +45% in 5 weeks (its capitalization jumped to $1,800 billion, which is stratospheric).
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 again, with Microsoft +1.6%, Alphabet +2% and Amazon +2.7%.

The week just ended 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' next May if the labor market remains at its zenith (with wage rises in sight) and if inflation resurfaces, after having eased at the end of 2023, thanks to very positive 'base effects'.

Keep an eye on the latest US inflation figures next week.
In the meantime, Wall Street continues to ignore the tension on the rates market, with the most optimistic seeing it as proof of the robustness of the US economy.

The yield on T-Bonds continues to soar, with a 10-year yield of over 4.18% (+1.5Pt), the highest since the beginning of the year.

Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.