The bullish rally continued on Wall Street, with a new deluge of absolute records across the board: 43,810 for the Dow Jones (-0.00% closing, record double missed by 0.00001%), 5,984 for the S&P500 (new bullish 'gap' and +0.75% closing at 5,973), which should post 6,000 this Friday to end the week in style, and 19,300 for the Nasdaq Composite (+1.5% and second bullish 'gap').000 this Friday to end the week on a high, and 19,300 for the Nasdaq Composite (+1.5% and second bullish 'gap')... for which the 20,000 mark is approaching.

The 2,400 mark has been passed on the Russell-2000... even if consolidation was the order of the day at close with -0.35%, after +5.85% the previous day. The Dow Transportation also set a new record at 17,500 before consolidating by -1.45% at 17,210 (after +5.5% on Wednesday).

In a sign of confidence, the VIX eased by a further -6.6% (after -20% the previous day) to 15.2 (compared with 22 on Monday and Tuesday at the start of the session).

The Nasdaq-100 (+1.55%) climbed above 21,000 in the wake of the "Fantastic 7", which also set several all-time records, starting with Nvidia (+2.2% for $3.650Bn in 'capi'), Amazon +1.9% (absolute record for $2,210Bn in 'capi'), Meta (+3.4% which equals its best closing of July 7 and flirts with $1,500Bn in 'capi'), Apple (+1.9% and $3.440Bn 'capi'), Tesla (+3.4%, best close in two years, after a test of the $300 mark, i.e. +18% in 48H for $955Bn 'capi', very close to rejoining the $1.000Bn club), Microsoft (+1.25% and $3,160Bn in 'capi').

The 'Fantastic 7' have a combined capitalization of $15,675Bn, equivalent to 54% of US GDP... an unprecedented figure.

The election of Donald Trump - and his institutional grand slam in Congress - created a positive electroshock only for American companies... whose stock market valuations were already at their zenith.

The day was also dominated by monetary policy, with decisions by the Fed: its members unanimously decided to cut the key rate by -25 basis points (range 4.50/4.75%), citing tame inflation tending towards 2% and a desire to avert the risk of an economic slowdown.... even if it is 'progressing at a sustained pace'.

US T-Bonds greeted the announcement without emotion, and continued their smooth decline, with the 10-year down 9.5 basis points to 4.33%, and the 2-year down 6 basis points to 4.205% (little changed from the levels seen a few minutes before the announcement).

In terms of statistics, two figures were published in the United States: non-farm productivity rose by 2.2% at an annualized rate in the third quarter of 2024, according to the Labor Department's first estimate, reflecting a 3.5% rise in total output for a 1.2% increase in the number of hours worked.

This strong rise in productivity was nonetheless less than the 4.2% increase in hourly wages, a discrepancy which translated into a 1.9% increase in non-agricultural unit labor costs for the quarter.

In addition, the Labor Department recorded 221,000 new registrations for unemployment benefits in the USA last week, a figure up by 3.000 compared with the week of October 28, which was revised from 216,000 to 218,000.

The number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 39,000 to 1,892,000 in the week of October 21, the most recent period available for this statistic.

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