Wall Street set record after record, but only just: the S&P500 set its 4th record (+0.08%), but finished a long way off the day's highs (4,868 vs. 4,903). No suspense for the Nasdaq Composite (+0.36%) and Nasdaq-100 (+0.55%), but this 5th record could have been more dazzling with a final score of 17,499 versus a zenith of 17,665. The Dow Jones finally gave up -0.26% to 37,806, in the wake of 3M (-3%) and Verizon (-2.3%).

Optimism regarding the 'soft landing' scenario is sustained by the strength of US private sector activity: according to S&P Global, growth accelerated in January, with the composite PMI coming in at 52.3 in flash estimate, a seven-month high, after 50.9 for the previous month.

Expansion was underpinned by service providers, while manufacturers continued to see their output fall as supply problems intensified", says S&P Global.

The new all-time highs on the S&P and Nasdaq were linked, as they have been every day since January 1st, to the surge in semiconductor prices, led by Nvidia (+2.5%), which jumped +5% to $628 during the session, breaking the $1.500 bn, i.e. +$300 bn in 'capi' since January 1, i.e. six times its anticipated annual sales for 2024 (overall, Nvidia pays 25 times its sales, a ratio never seen before for a stock weighing over $350 bn, the equivalent of LVMH).

New records were set by Broadcom (+2.2% to $1,284), Applied Materials (+4.2% to $176), AMD (+5.9% to $182.5), and Netflix (+10.7% with no less than 13.2 million subscribers recruited in the fourth quarter, its biggest score since the pandemic).

"While it's true that sellers are fretting about valuations in the tech sector, we think estimates for 2024 and 2025 are going to be revised upwards with the wave of AI investment about to hit the market," warns Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

In fact, for the past three full months, 100% of Wall Street's performance has been based on a dozen stocks, three of which have accounted for 80% of its performance since January 1: an ultra-concentration unseen in 140 years.

Tesla disappointed (-3.5% in the 'after hour') with lower-than-expected fourth-quarter results, as profits were reduced by a succession of announcements of cuts in average selling prices: this is one of the most penalizing aspects of Tesla's price war with Chinese carmakers. The Group posted a modest +3% increase in sales and net earnings of $2.48 billion (-39% year-on-year), or 71 cents per share, slightly below consensus.

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