Mercati e la volatilità politica del secondo semestre
July 8, 2024
Linea Mercati Interview 7/8/24
July 9, 2024The New York Stock Exchange ended higher on Friday, setting two new records on the strength of a mixed indicator on employment, which increases, in the minds of investors, the probability of a drop in interest rates. interest from September.
The Nasdaq index rose 0.90% and the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.54%, both hitting new closing highs. The Dow Jones gained 0.17%.
The Nasdaq has already broken 24 records since the start of the year, and the S&P 500, 34.
The day was marked by the report from the Department of Labor, which reported 206,000 job creations in June in the United States.
This is more than the projections of economists, who expected 190,000 job creations, but investors quickly put this figure into perspective.
In fact, the ministry revised downwards the data for April and May, cutting 111,000 jobs in total, in net.
Furthermore, the private sector only created 136,000 new positions, less than the 160,000 announced by economists.
“This shows that companies are a little hesitant to hire,” commented Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital.
The New York market also took note of the rise in the unemployment rate to 4.1%, its highest level since November 2021.
Friday’s data “show that cracks are emerging” in the job market, insisted Peter Cardillo.
“From the point of view of the Fed (the American central bank), employment has not fallen enough to justify a rate cut this month,” said Bill Adams of Comerica Bank. “But the trend is clear. If inflation confirms its trajectory, the Fed should change its rates in September.”
This idea has played out on the bond market, whose rates have relaxed significantly. The yield on 2-year US government bonds fell to 4.59%, a first in three months.
This shift has contributed to keeping the stock market indices in the green, underlined Peter Cardillo.
The lower rate environment benefited the technology sector, particularly large caps including Meta (+5.87%) and Alphabet (+2.44%), as well as semiconductor makers AMD (+4 .88%) and Intel (+2.53%).
For once, Nvidia was one of the bad performers (-1.91%), affected by a lower recommendation from an analyst from New Street Research, Pierre Ferragu, for whom the title is “fully valued” , and who no longer sees any room for improvement in the short term.
Tesla continued the rise begun in June (+2.08%), still driven by better-than-expected quarterly sales as well as the prospect of the presentation of its robot-taxi on August 8.
For analysts at Wedbush Securities, the automaker “is the most undervalued stock associated with artificial intelligence (AI) on the market.” However, he has already gained 50% in less than a month.
Going against the tide of the technology sector, heavy industry, energy and the financial sector struggled, like JPMorgan Chase (-1.31%), Dow (-1.23%) and Chevron (- 1.53%).
Macy’s gained height (+9.54%), after information from the Wall Street Journal, according to which the two investment companies Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management have once again increased their offer on the department store brand, now valued at $6.9 billion.
Bitcoin fell on Friday to its lowest level in four months, taking with it most of the sector’s stocks, such as the “miners” (creators of cryptocurrencies) Marathon Digital Holdings (-3.86%) and the site of brokerage Robinhood (-0.92%).
