Adjectives are lacking to adequately characterize the behaviour of Wall Street, which yesterday and today is once again unstoppable to new highs, driven by the technology and financial sectors. The comprehensive S&P500 opened on Thursday above 3,300-point level and didn’t even show much interest in testing this “round number” bar, which often means a big hit. The session brought little or non-big movement, it was a very stable and slightly upward trend, barely noticeable, at least until the last hour of the day. When the Bulls decided to pull the indexes and led Wall Street to very interesting gains ranging from 0.84% on the S&P500 to 1.06% on the Nasdaq.
Photo by Franck V.
In the main index sectors, technology gained another 1.4% and even safe haven assets were at a good level, with valuations reaching 0.61% in utilities, while energy sources showed some relative weakness and went no further than a rise of 0.31%, not keeping up with crude prices that jumped 1.2% in the WTI to $58.53 a barrel, which was the best “black gold” session in the last ten trading days. Over the next two weeks, the earnings season accelerates as most S&P500 companies report their fourth quarter and last year results, with the market expecting a -0.4% contraction in earnings over the past three years. A less good phase is expected to give rise to 9.6% growth during 2020, which may justify some of the enthusiasm shown by investors, yet valuations are already pulled, and a continuation of the upward trend will only aggravate that fact.
