Wall Street ended the session on a downbeat note, with the Dow Jones dropping -1.5%, the S&P500 -1.6% and the Nasdaq -2%.
The monthly balance sheet was thus negative by -3.5% for the S&P and -3.9% for the Nasdaq, which fell well below 16,000Pts.000Pts, penalized by Sirius (-7.3%), Tesla (-5.6%), Microsoft (-3.2%), Intel (-2.8%), Alphabet (-2%), Apple (-1.8%)... and Amazon, which had fallen by -3.3%, recovered by +3.5% following the publication of its results, which exceeded consensus with $0.98 per share versus $0.85 expected, and AWS sales up by +17%.

AMD, for its part, published results perfectly in line with consensus (but investors were hoping for better, and the stock lost -3.5%), and it was Pinterest that stood out with +24%, with sales 10% higher than expected and the number of users passing the 500 million mark worldwide.

The S&P500 fell in the wake of the casino/entertainment sector (-5% on average) and oil groups with Marathon -9.8%, Valero -4.1%, Halliburton and devon -3.6%, Occidental -3.3%, Chevron -3%.

On the figures front, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index deteriorated significantly (-6.1Pts) for the 3rd consecutive month in April, to 97 this month against a revised figure of 103.1 in March: this is its lowest level since July 2022.

The sub-index measuring consumer expectations fell to 66.4 from 74 last month, a figure below the 80-point threshold often heralding a coming recession.


Wall Street's 5-month rise came to a halt, but did not validate a major shift, especially as the interest-rate squeeze could have done far more damage to the "technos" (those most vulnerable to worsening credit conditions).
T-Bonds rallied +7pts to 4.685%, the "2-year" +5pts to 5.023%.

Markets are coping poorly with the uncertainty surrounding the tone of the Fed's statement to be released tomorrow evening.

No rate changes are expected on this occasion, but market participants will be dissecting the language relating to inflation: this was almost unthinkable 3 months ago, but the hypothesis of zero rate cuts in 2024 and one hike in January 2025 (in 9 months' time) now garners 33% of votes, while a 1st rate cut in September is marginally in the majority.
The past few weeks have been clearly marked by a spectacular downward revision of US rate cut expectations for 2024, from seven to potentially zero.

This session also demonstrated the vulnerability of cryptos to US rate tension: Ethereum fell -6.5%, Solana -7%, Bitcoin -5%, below the major support of $60,500/$60,000 (BTC is at its lowest this evening at 59,850, around 10.15pm).

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