In terms of economic indicators, US Treasury yields slipped from recent highs as US economic data showed manufacturing & services activity unexpectedly weakened in April to a 4-month low due to sluggish demand.
Wall Street closed in positive territory on Tuesday trading (23/04/24), recording two consecutive days of gains largely supported by better-than-expected 1st quarter financial reports, just before the start of performance reports from the Magnificent 7, where Tesla will only report after the market closes. Following Tesla, the next turn falls on Meta this Wednesday, then Microsoft and Alphabet on Thursday.
The 2-year US Treasury yield briefly shot up to 5%, as investors await a number of important data including manufacturing data, preliminary first quarter GDP data, and the PCE price index data which is the Fed’s favorite inflation benchmark, later this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 indexes gained 0.7% and 0.9% respectively on Monday (22/04/24), rebounding from their biggest weekly decline since March 2023 as investors await quarterly earnings reports from major technology companies.
WHAT A BEARISH WEEK, the S&P 500 fell 3.05%, the Nasdaq fell 5.52%, and the Dow rose 0.01% last week. The S&P had its biggest weekly drop since March 2023 and the Nasdaq had its biggest weekly drop since the week of October 31, 2022.
Equity markets have struggled to sustain the five-month rally that started in November, partly due to expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates in the first half of the year.
The S&P 500 closed below 5,000 on Friday (19/04/2024), marking the sixth consecutive day of declines as Netflix and Nvidia shares fell, causing the Nasdaq to lose 2.1%.
Economic data and comments from Federal Reserve officials indicated that the US central bank is unlikely to cut interest rates in the near future. Economic data showed that the labor market remains resilient, as weekly jobless claims were unchanged from the previous week at 212,000 while the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index (Apr.) rose to its highest level in two years, with a reading of 15.5 which was much higher than the estimate of 1.5 and 3.2 in the previous period.
US stocks closed relatively flat on Thursday trading (18/04/24), as investors sifted through the latest corporate earnings reports, while economic data and comments from Federal Reserve officials indicated that the US central bank is unlikely to cut interest rates in the near future.
