Market: new record double 48 hours before Thanksgiving

(CercleFinance.com) - With 48 hours to go before Thanksgiving, there's no stopping Wall Street, which got the week off to a great start yesterday: bis repetita this Tuesday, with a new deluge of records and intraday closing doubles for the main US indices.


The Dow Jones broke through the 44.900 at around 9:45 p.m. and ended up 0.3% at 44,860, the S&P 500 peaked at 6,025 and posted +0.6% at 5,021, the Nasdaq +0.62% at 19,173 (in the wake of Amazon's +3.3% return to within 3% of its record high of $215).

No record, however, for the Russell-2000 (-0.8%) and the Dow Transport, which fell by -0.3% to 17,697.

Shortly after the close, Autodesk announced results slightly ahead of expectations, but down -3% in the 'after hour' (despite net earnings per share of $1.27, up +14%, annual earnings forecasts were raised by +3% to a range of $8.29 to $8.35).

The day's figures were mixed: the first was rather reassuring, as US consumer confidence improved by +2Pts in November.

The Conference Board employers' organization published an index of 111.7, compared with 109.6 the previous month (revised from 108.7 on first reading).

In detail, the sub-index measuring Americans' assessment of their current situation rose by 4.8 points to 140.9, while the sub-index measuring their expectations rose by 0.4 points to 92.3, moving away from the 80 threshold which usually prefigures a recession.

The second figure is less 'smiling': new home sales in the USA fell sharply in October, with high house prices and borrowing rates still weighing on demand.

Expressed as a seasonally-adjusted annual rate, sales fell by 17.3% last month to 610.000 units, according to figures released by the Commerce Department.

The median house price continued to rise (+2.7%), reaching $437,300 last month, compared with $426,000 in September and $417,500 in October last year.

After Monday's 14-pt "air pocket", T-Bond yields recovered by +3 basis points on the 10-year (4.30%) and the 30-year (4.47%).

In his latest speeches, Jerome Powell noted that the US economy remained solid and that there was no need to act urgently, while keeping open the option of a cut on December 18.

According to the CME Group's FedWatch barometer, investors assess the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut by the central bank in December at 56.2%, compared with 74.6% a month ago.

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