For the past three sessions, the New York Stock Exchange has made a habit of turning around a situation that seemed compromised in the last half-hour. The initial losses were not insurmountable, and without too much effort, the US indices collectively finished in the green on Tuesday, thanks to a further easing of bond yields across the curve.

The initial heaviness had been caused by the plunge of the Mexican stock market on Monday, followed by that of the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday, but investors felt that in comparison, Wall Street could - by contrast - appear as a haven of stability.

That's why the Dow Jones gained 0.35% to 38,711, the S&P500 and Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.15% to 5,291 and 16,857 respectively, while the Nasdaq-100 (+0.3%) outperformed thanks to... Nvidia, that's almost impossible to ignore. Modest, but a good omen on the eve of the ADP report and 72 hours before the NFP (US employment figures).

Treasury bonds - in contrast to the stock market indices - did not finish the day at their highest, but the fall in yields was appreciable: US T-Bonds eased by -six basis points to 4.33%.... the third consecutive session of declines.

On the macro-economic front, the most eagerly awaited figure was the Jolts report: the Labor Department counted 8.059 million job offers in April (March offers were revised downwards to 8.355 million). Industrial orders were also up 0.7% in April, which may have given oil a slight boost.

WTI was sinking towards $72.5 for the first time since February 2, but ended just above $73, down -1.4%, for a cumulative decline (which no one would have anticipated a week ago) of -8.5 to -9%.

Unsurprisingly, FMC dropped -3.9%, Halliburton -2.5%, ConocoPhilips -1.4%, Occidental -1.1%. But this was offset by a +1.3% rise in Nvidia (a new 'double' of closing and absolute records, for a record capitalization of $2,865 billion), bringing its annual rise to +135% (i.e. almost 55% of the S&P500's rise in 2024).

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