Wall Street is starting the week on a slightly heavy note, but spreads have remained completely fixed almost from start to finish: US indices are catching their breath after Friday's record highs and an 18th week of gains.

These losses remain marginal with the S&P500 -0.12%, the Dow Jones -0.25%, the Nasdaq Composite -0.41%... and the downturn was largely held in check once again by the semiconductor sector.

The SOXX (+1%) smashed a new all-time high, and the 'Vaneck Semi.C' gained +1.6% in the wake of Intel +4.1%, Marvell and Qualcomm +2.2%, AMD +1.3%... and inevitably Nvidia +3.6% (new all-time high at $852) with $45 billion traded.

The Nasdaq-100 was weighed down by Apple -2.5%, Alphabet -2.8%, Tesla -7.2% and Workday -6.5%, while the energy sector weighed down the S&P500 with Enphase Energy -4.4%, Diamondback -3.4%, Chevron -2.6% and Conoco -2%.

The star sector of the day was financials, with Morgan Stanley +4.1%, PNC +4%, Fifth Third +3.2%, Keycorp +2.8%, FMC +2.6%, Bank of America +2.3%, Goldman Sachs +1.1% (Wall Street brackets its worries about the regional banks).

The cautious attitude of US operators can be explained 48 hours ahead of a speech by Jerome Powell and four days ahead of US employment figures: the consensus is for an average of 200,000 new jobs in February, following a sharp drop in the number of jobs created.000 job creations in February, following January's fireworks display of 353,000 new jobs, i.e. double the market forecast.

The T-Bond yield has risen by +3 basis points to 4.216%: the nervousness of the US fixed-income markets has been palpable since the end of 2023. The 'pivot' was triggered on December 27, and yields have recovered an average of over 50 basis points in nine weeks, across all maturities.

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