U.S. indices hit a new flurry of all-time highs - at the margin - in the morning, but the mood darkened towards the end of the session, perhaps due to a slight deterioration in the rates markets, after a flurry of stats (but it's not obvious).

Traders may feel that all bets were off on this eve of the "3 Witches", as U.S. equities gained an average of +5 to +5.5% over the May term, which expires tomorrow.

This is hardly a consolidation: the Dow Jones is down -0.1%, the S&P500 -0.2% and the Nasdaq -0.25% in the wake of Cisco -2.7%, Biogen -2.1%, Meta and Broadcom -1.7%, Amazon -1.3%.

New annual or absolute records were set by Marvel +4.2%, Intel +2.4%, AMD +1 9%, Alphabet +1%.

The Dow Jones briefly rose above 40,000 in the wake of Walmart +7%, the S&P500 peaked at 5,325pts, the Nasdaq-100 at 18,670.
The day was also marked by a surge in copper prices, which broke through $11,000/tonne in New York and peaked at $10.400 in London, while silver also soared +3.5% to $29.6/Oz, breaking through historic resistance and heralding a major upswing.
The day was packed with statistics, and not all the figures were as 'reassuring' as the day before.... and in particular US import prices, which climbed +0.9% due to an almost generalized increase in the cost of imported goods, after an already 'uncomfortable' rise of 0.6% in March.
This is their biggest increase since March 2022... a far cry from the 0.2% expected.
While the rise in the cost of petroleum products was the main reason for this higher-than-expected statistic, various categories of goods saw their prices rise, which could rekindle fears of persistent inflation.

Prices of imported petroleum products rose by 2.4% in April, following a 5.4% jump in March, but the increase also concerned industrial materials (+2.7%) and agricultural food products (+2.2%).

The Philly Fed manufacturing activity index unexpectedly fell by -11pts to 4.5 after 15.5 in April (down towards 8 was anticipated), due in particular to the -20Pts plunge in the 'new orders' component, which fell to -7.9fell to -7.9 from 12.2 in April.
The 6-month business outlook remained relatively stable at 32.4, after 34.3 the previous month.
The employment sub-index improved to -7.9 from -10.7 in April, while the paid prices sub-index fell to 18.7 from 23.

On the real estate front, the Commerce Department reported a 5.7% rebound in US housing starts in April compared with the previous month, to an annualized rate of 1,360,000, following a 16.8% decline in March.
On the other hand, U.S. building permits - thought to be a precursor of future housing starts - fell by 3% to 1,440,000 last month.
Lastly, weekly jobless claims contracted by -10,000 to 222,000, a score that suggests a situation of 'full employment', which could push up wages.

Gold, which most often moves inversely to the Dollar, is up towards $2,380, although rates have eased by +3Pts on the '10-year' and +6Pts on the '2-year'.




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