The New York Stock Exchange finished sharply higher on Friday, with the main indices closing at their zenith: it decided to ignore a PCE index that exceeded expectations and focus on the good quarterly results from Microsoft (+1.8%), Snap (+23.4%) and Alphabet (+10%), which offset disappointments from Meta on Wednesday and Intel on Thursday evening.

The Dow Jones gained 0.4% to 38,240, the Nasdaq Composite gained 2% to 15,928 and the S&P500 gained 1% to finish in contact with the 5,100 mark. As a result, the S&P and Nasdaq posted their best weeks of the year (+2.7% and +4.4% respectively), after the worst since October 2023 or January 2022.

Alphabet outperformed Nvidia, which jumped +6.2%. Other top performers included Micron and Applied Materials (+3%), Amazon (+3.4%) and Broadcom (+3.8%), while Intel fell 9.2% on disappointing forecasts.

On the rates front, T-Bonds - which had just posted their worst levels of the year on Thursday evening - eased slightly with the release of a PCE inflation index a little higher than economists had anticipated, coming in at +2.7% (+2.8% underlying) in March.

Still on the statistics front, US household spending rose by 0.8% in March compared with the previous month, while household incomes rose by 0.5%. Finally, the UMich consumer confidence index deteriorated more sharply than initially estimated in April, to 77.2 from 77.9 in the first reading.

According to CME Group's FedWatch tool, the estimated probability of a rate cut in June has returned to around 12%, and that of a cut in September has fallen to 44%, on a par with the scenario of a continuation of the 'status quo' (40%).

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