Weekly market update : After the calm of Thanksgiving comes a storm of data

In the absence of any major macroeconomic data, and with Wall Street being closed for Thanksgiving, the week was fairly quiet. Nevertheless, financial markets maintained their bullish course, still buoyed by expectations of the end of the monetary tightening cycle on both sides of the Atlantic. Volatility disappeared altogether, demonstrating the current serenity of market participants as the end of the year approaches.

Weekly variations* US 500 4559  +1.00% AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES... +11.90% INSULET CORPORATION +7.98% ENPHASE ENERGY, INC. +7.93% ZIONS BANCORPORATION... -4.77% AUTODESK, INC. -6.40% JACOBS SOLUTIONS INC... -8.83% DOW JONES INDUST... 35390.15  +1.27% NASDAQ 100 15982.01  +0.91% FTSE 100 7488.20  -0.21% GOLD 2001.80$  +1.38% WTI 75.12$  -1.43% EURO / US DOLLAR 1.09$  +0.30%

This week's gainers and losers

Gainers: Burlington Stores (+27%): The clothing retailer is on a roll. It reported better-than-expected quarterly results, with revenues and adjusted earnings up, despite a difficult economic context and a sluggish October. The group, which plans to open around 500 net new stores over the next 5 years, expressed confidence for the coming years and unveiled ambitious targets for 2028. In the meantime, JPMorgan Chase, Jefferies and Barclays have raised their price targets on the stock. Vinfast (+19%): This week, the Nasdaq-listed Vietnamese manufacturer of electric vehicles unveiled its new SUV: the VF7, smaller than its predecessors and therefore more suited to the European market. Available to order only in Vietnam, it is due to join the foreign market next year: the automaker aims to expand to 7 new countries by 2024. Not enough to make up for the 38% drop in sales since January 1.  Coinbase (+16%): The US crypto-currency platform is rubbing its hands. This week, the group and its CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to several charges, including money laundering. The result: a $4.3 billion fine and the forced resignation of the founder. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase's CEO, took advantage of this debacle, and to a lesser extent of the SEC's accusations against the Kraken platform, to reiterate his commitment to respecting the laws and regulations governing crypto-assets. Clever. Coinbase gains over 200% on the year. ARM Holdings (+14%): ARM, the Nasdaq-listed British chip designer, is riding on the buoyant trend of artificial intelligence and on Nvidia's good results, which commented on the performance of its Grace CPU chip, based on Arm. Note that the stock is almost back to its IPO price, after two turbulent months.  Sage group (+12%): The British publisher of management software for small and medium-sized businesses has posted a fine performance for fiscal 2023, with sales up 10%, EPS up 22% and increased profitability, driven by growth in subscriptions and cloud solutions, and the strength of the North American market. For next year, management forecasts double-digit revenue growth and improved margins.  Diploma (+10%): The British industrial conglomerate specializing in technical services, which joined the FTSE 100 in September, has published its results: over the year, sales rose by 19%, profit by 24% and free cash flow by 36%. The market also praised the Group's well-executed external growth strategy, financed by profits, the upward revision of its outlook, and the announcement of a dividend increase, bringing it closer to the sector averages.   Losers: American Eagle Outfitters (-16%), Urban Outfitters (-12%), Guess (-12%): These are hard times for the apparel sector. American Eagle Outfitters, Urban Outfitters and Guess have all performed well over the past three months, with positive results, and the former has even raised its sales forecasts for the holiday season. But the brands are suffering from the sector's cautious stance and investors' concerns about falling consumer spending.  Virgin Money UK (-12%): Weakened by pressure on lending margins, inflation and rising bad debt provisions, the UK digital bank reported a 24% fall in full-year profit and a very slight increase in revenues. The group also declared a reduction in its dividend, and an additional share buyback of £150 million. Jacobs Solutions (-9%): The US engineering and consulting services specialist reported quarterly earnings and revenues below most analysts' expectations. The group also announced its intention to spin off its Critical Missions Solutions and Cyber & Intelligence businesses, and merge them with Amentum to create a new listed company focused on the government services sector, in order to streamline its portfolio and improve margins. An operation that does not require shareholder approval, hence their timidity.  DLocal Limited (-7%): The New York-listed Uruguayan fintech reported encouraging results for the quarter and the first 9 months of the year: revenues and profits were up. It also reaffirmed its annual revenue forecasts of between $620 and $640 million. But the markets took a dim view of the announcement of the resignation of the company's CFO. Immediate punishment.

Commodities

Energy: Doors are slamming and dishes are breaking at OPEC+, which is torn by disagreements within the alliance. As a result, the meeting originally scheduled for November 26 in Vienna has been virtually postponed until November 30. An impasse on the future policy of the enlarged organization represents a major unknown for the market. The last thing OPEC+ wants is to find itself deadlocked at a meeting. Oil prices have fallen, but even so, the weekly balance is fairly neutral. The sharp rise in weekly US inventories (+8 million barrels) also weighed on the trend. In terms of prices, Brent is trading at around USD 81, while WTI is trading at around USD 76. Metals: A consolidation sequence for industrial metals, with the exception of copper, which continues to climb in London to USD 8,300. Aluminum lost ground, penalized by a report from the International Aluminium Institute, which showed a 3.9% year-on-year increase in production in October. Zinc, too, was weighed down by a rise in LME inventories. As for gold, the precious metal is once again attempting to break through the USD 2,000/oz barrier. Is this the right attempt? To be continued. Agricultural products: The performance gap between cocoa and the rest of the agricultural products segment is widening, with cocoa continuing its advance to over USD 4,100 a tonne. At the same time, grain prices did not fluctuate much. A bushel of wheat is still trading at around 580 cents in Chicago. Corn is trading at around 490 cents per bushel. In Ukraine, although the Department of Agriculture is optimistic about the winter wheat harvest, the level of shipments remains uncertain given Russian harassment of its port facilities.

Macroeconomics

Atmosphere: With the exception of the traditional turkey, investors, especially in the US, didn't have much to eat. The Conference Board's Leading Index came in slightly below expectations, at -0.8% versus -0.7%. Data continues to point to a recession in the months ahead. One component is particularly interesting: consumers are more pessimistic about economic conditions, which could dampen their buying ardor, especially during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For this reason, sales volume will be the focus of investors. As a reminder, one of the pillars of the current narrative remains a soft landing for the US economy, which would therefore not be compatible with a sharp downturn in consumption. In the meantime, equity indices have managed to maintain their bullish course, including in Europe, even if volumes at the end of the week were particularly sluggish. At the end of an unremarkable week, the US 10-year yield is attempting to rebound from its 2022 peak of 4.34%. We'll be keeping an eye on 4.60% as initial resistance, which, if breached, could put a damper on the fine upward momentum seen in equities over the past month. The German Bund has also stabilized above its 200-day moving average around 2.60/53%, with a first rebound target around 2.75/77%, which if breached should result in a retest of 3.01%. Crypto: Although Binance has been forced to pay a $4.3 billion fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), notably for violations of money transfer laws and US sanctions, and to part company with its emblematic CEO Changpeng Zhao, bitcoin is up +1% this week and now hovers around $37,750. A sign that, contrary to all expectations, this case has not caused panic among crypto-investors. Meanwhile, ether, the second most valuable cryptocurrency on the market, has outperformed the leader, rising by almost 5% since Monday, and is back above the $2,100 mark at the time of writing. The total valuation of the cryptocurrency market crosses the $1400 billion mark for the first time since May 2022.

After the calm of Thanksgiving comes a storm of data Next week's economic calendar will be marked by the US consumer confidence index. It will be published on Tuesday. The following day, preliminary data on US GDP growth will be unveiled. Thursday will see the release of the PCE price index excluding food and energy. Expectations are high for these figures, as experts once again expect inflation to slow. Unemployment claims are due on the same day. Finally, the US ISM Manufacturing PMI will be released on Friday. On the corporate front, Zscaler will publish its results on Monday. Tuesday will see Intuit, Meituan, Workday, Crowdstrike, Splunk and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, followed on Wednesday by Salesforce, Prosus, Synopsys, Snowflake and Dollar Tree. Finally, VMWare, Dell Technology, Marvell Technology, Kroger and Ulta Beauty will publish their results on Thursday.

Things to read this week

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*The weekly movements of indexes and stocks displayed on the dashboard are related to the period ranging from the open on Monday to the sending time of this newsletter on Friday. The weekly movements of commodities, precious metals and currencies displayed on the dashboard are related to a 7-day rolling period from Friday to Friday, until the sending time of this newsletter. These assets continue to quote on weekends.