Wall Street held up well at the start of a very special week, in the wake of the attack on Donald Trump, who seems to be 'bending' the November elections (the former host of the White House has a 70% chance of being elected, according to the first post-event polls).

Donald Trump took advantage of the start of the Republican convention to introduce his running mate (who would potentially become Vice-President in January 2025): 40-year-old Ohio Senator James David Vance.

Very conservative like his mentor, and a fervent Christian, he also advocates closing the border with Mexico, the unrestricted exploitation of shale oil and shale gas... and cuts in public spending (the US debt has reached $35,000 billion).

The Democrats seem so resigned to defeat on November 5 that all the manoeuvring - and 'leaks' - concerning Joe Biden's imminent replacement came to a screeching halt on Sunday.

But the 'Thomas Crook' affair will certainly not stop at the version of the 'lone gunman' who benefited from an 'exceptional stroke of luck' to gain unhindered access to his firing post, then had time to fire several times, killing one bystander and wounding two others.

The investigation's follow-up may well hold political surprises for which Wall Street is not necessarily prepared.

But in the meantime, the possibility of a Trump victory was already very much in the air, and the markets were rather serene on this subject: they are even more so this Monday, as demonstrated by the rise in US equities on a broad front.

The Dow Jones (+0.53%) finally took its revenge on the broad indices (after eight weeks of waiting): it achieved a record closing/intraday double at 40,211 and 40,350 respectively (compared with 40,003 on 17/05 and 40,077 intraday on 20/05).

The session ended with a +0.3% rise for the S&P500, which equalled its all-time session record (but did not exceed it) at 5,631, and a +0.4% gain for the Nasdaq Composite, at 18.472 (no record, but 0.8% off the highs).

The Nasdaq-100 (+0.3% to 20,387) was supported by Qualcomm +2.8%, Tesla +1.8%, Apple and Comcast +1.7%... but ARM, ASML, Idexx Lab and Micron lost -2%, AMD -1%.

A contrasting picture emerged in the energy sector, with Nextera Energy down 6.6%, NR Energy down 5.7% and Emphase Energy down 5.3%, while oil companies were in fine form, with Diamondbak up 3.3%, Halliburton up 3.8%, Baker Hughes up 3.5%, Devons up 3.4% and EOG up 2.9%.

Investors will be able to reassure themselves about market fundamentals through a series of company accounts.

While the leading US banks kicked off the results ball on Friday - albeit with a 6% loss for Wells Fargo - Goldman Sachs reassured investors with quarterly results twice as good as 2023.

The stock gained +2.6% after a hesitant start to the session, taking JPMorgan in its wake with +2.5%, followed by AMEX with +2.3% (which will publish this Tuesday, as will Johnson & Johnson and Netflix).

On the rates front, it was very quiet (no stats on Monday), and while US T-Bonds yielded 4.200% (+2.5 basis points), this was offset by the 2-year, which eased symmetrically by -2.5 basis points to 4.435%.

Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.