Wall Street: partly reassured by consumer spending

(CercleFinance.com) - Wall Street is moving without much of a trend on Monday after a long three-day weekend, weighed down on the one hand by the energy and industrial sectors, but supported on the other by retail stocks.


Around an hour after opening, the Dow Jones is down 0.1% at 35,335.8 points, while the Nasdaq Composite is down less than 0.1% at 14,263.6 points.

The promising start to the year-end shopping season - interpreted by investors as a positive sign about the health of the economy - is serving as a pretext for continued buying of consumer stocks, which have been highly prized in recent months.

According to analysts, early indications point to resilient sales, which should be sustained by a heavy reliance on promotional offers.

"Inflation has made it necessary to launch promotions to support traffic, especially in view of the slow start to the season due to the chilly weather", explain BofA analysts.

In addition to this reassuring outlook for consumer spending, bond yields have continued to fall, a trend that has now lasted more than a month.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries is down by more than four basis points, below 4.43%, on the eve of what promises to be a year rich in economic indicators.

Only three of the 11 major S&P sector indices are in positive territory, but the retail sector is the best performer of the day, with a gain of 0.5%.

Among the strongest performers in the S&P 500, Amazon gained 1.5% on Cyber Monday, returning to a year-high of $1,540 billion in market capitalization.

Gloomy oil prices, on the other hand, weighed on the energy sector, whose sector index lost 0.7%.

The January contract for US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) was little changed at $75.6 a barrel, a few days ahead of the Opep+ ministerial meeting, which some believe could lead to a reduction in production quotas.

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