In the week when the Fed released its meeting minutes and Powell and many other senior Fed officials spoke to firm up easing signals, the overall cumulative gains in European and US stock indices, with some major stock indices delivering a nice multi-week streak of gains.
Friday’s release of the U.S. March PPI grew at a decade-high year-over-year rate to make the market more worried about the momentum of rising inflation, U.S. bond yields rebounded significantly and prices retreated. But Federal Reserve officials continue to release supportive economic signals. In the New York Fed Executive Vice President Logan’s speech made the market speculation that the Fed will increase the purchase of long-term U.S. debt, Fed Vice President Clarida said again, before adjusting monetary easing, Fed policymakers have to wait until there is employment and prices “hard data” show that whether the Fed’s inflation and employment targets in the approach. The three major U.S. stock indexes rose in midday trading Friday, with the Nasdaq falling in early trading as some leading technology stocks retreated mid-day and the three major indexes pulled up collectively in late trading.
A number of popular Chinese stocks underperformed the broader market. Shares of Sogou and its former parent Sohu are higher and Tencent U.S. shares are lower after news that Chinese regulators are ready to conditionally approve Tencent’s Sogou privatization deal.
Rare results in Europe’s fight against the epidemic: Germany doubled the number of single-day vaccinators; France reached its target of 10 million first vaccination shots a week ahead of schedule; Italy will ease embargo restrictions. Inspired by this, the pan-European and German stock indices continued to reach record highs on Friday. Prices of safe-haven European government bonds, such as German bunds, retreated and yields recovered.
Precious metals such as crude oil and gold, and industrial metals such as copper fell on Friday along with a rebound in the dollar index that hit a two-week low in quick succession. The dollar index fell cumulatively throughout the week, while precious metals and copper remained cumulatively higher and crude oil fell cumulatively under the shadow of a possible big increase in Iranian supply.
S&P closes at record high for four days this week, longest streak in more than five months, longest streak in European stocks in nearly a year and a half
The three major U.S. stock indexes were mixed on Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite the worst performer, opening 0.3% lower and falling nearly 0.6% at a new daily low early in the session before turning higher in midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened more than 20 points higher, and had risen about 150 points at the beginning of the session, after narrowing the gains, and expanded to more than 200 points at midday. The S&P 500 index opened slightly lower by 1.06 points, at the beginning of the session that turned up thereafter to maintain the upward trend, rising above 4100 points at midday, for the second consecutive day, is also the fourth day of the week to set a new intraday high.
The end of the three major indices ushered in a wave of pull-up, the S&P expanded to nearly 0.8%, the Dow rose slightly more than 300 points, a new intraday high since March 19, the Nasdaq rose more than 0.5%, a new intraday high since February 19.
Finally, the three major indices closed up collectively for the second consecutive day. The S&P closed up 0.77% at 4128.80 points, closing at a new all-time high for the third consecutive day and fourth day of the week. The Dow closed up 297.03 points, or 0.89%, at 33,800.60 points, the first time in history to close on 33,800 points, refreshing the closing high set on Monday. The Nasdaq closed up 0.51% at 13,900.19 points, a new closing high since Feb. 17, and this Monday and Thursday both closed at a new high since Feb. 19.
Small-cap stocks lost out on the broader market, with value stocks dominating the small-cap index Russell 2000 closing up a modest 0.04% only by virtue of the late pull-up. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 index closed up 0.63%, underperforming the Dow and S&P.
The three major stock indexes continued to accumulate gains this week, the S&P rose 2.7%, up three weeks in a row, the longest streak since the week of October 16 last year. The Dow rose 1.95%, also rose for three weeks. The Nasdaq rose 3.12%, up two weeks in a row. The Nasdaq 100 rose 3.87%, outperforming the broader market for the week, but the Russell 2000 fell 0.46%.
The S&P 500’s 11 major sectors, only three closed lower on Friday, led by a 0.5% drop in the energy sector dragged down by crude oil, utilities and essential consumer goods were down less than 0.1%. Rising sectors, up more than 1% of health care and non-essential consumer goods led the rise, information technology and industrial rose nearly 1%, the bottom of the rise was less than 0.2% of real estate and telecommunications services.
Dow components, by Deutsche Bank upgraded to buy rating of Honeywell rose more than 3.2%, and rose nearly 3.1% of the United Health and rose 3% of Salesforce common leader, Apple rose about 2%, Intel, Home Depot, Nike, Mercer, 3M rose more than 1%. Johnson & Johnson, Boeing, Walgreens fell more than 1%. A number of U.S. airlines temporarily grounded a combined total of more than 60 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft due to problems with the aircraft’s electrical system.
Most of the leading technology stocks closed up. FAANMG six major technology stocks fell collectively at the beginning of Friday’s session, but Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet turned up in early trading, Nifty turned up in late trading, Facebook turned up in early trading and then turned down again soon after, to close only down nearly 0.2% of Facebook a closed down, Amazon rose more than 2%, Apple rose 2%, Microsoft up about 1%, Alphabet rose 0.9%, Nifty rose more than 0.1%. Tesla had fallen more than 2% in early trading and closed down about 1%.
Three Chinese new energy auto stocks fell as did Tesla, with Xiaopeng and Ideal down 2% and Azera down more than 1%. Most of the popular Chinese stocks fell, with Chinese ETFs KWEB and CQQQ down more than 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Among individual stocks, Heilongjiang fell more than 8%, Beili Beili and Baidu dropped 3%, Alibaba and Jingdong fell more than 2%, Predo and Tencent ADR fell more than 1%; while Sohu rose more than 13%, Sogou and Tiger Securities rose nearly 4%.
In European markets, the Euro Stoxx 600 index closed up 0.08%, closing at a new high for the second consecutive day. In a week with only four trading days like last week, the stock index closed at a record high for a total of three days, with a cumulative gain of 1.16% for the week and a sixth consecutive cumulative gain, the longest consecutive week since November 2019. Major European stock indexes were mixed on Friday, with German shares reaching new highs, and British, French and German stocks all accumulated gains for the week, with German shares rising for six consecutive weeks, while Italian and Spanish stock indexes accumulated losses for the week.
10-year U.S. bond yields out of a two-week low once rose 6 basis points, still at 1.7% below
U.S. 10-year benchmark Treasury yields in early Asian trading had narrowly fell below 1.62% in the two-week trough, after which soon erased all the decline to rise, U.S. stocks rose above 1.68% before the bell, once approaching 1.69% to refresh the daily high, up more than 6 basis points during the day, U.S. stocks in early trading had briefly returned to 1.64% below, lunchtime re-up 1.66%.
By the time U.S. stocks closed, the 10-year U.S. bond yield of about 1.66%, up 4 basis points during the day, the whole day never regained 1.70%; 30-year U.S. bond yield of 2.33%, up 2 basis points during the day; 2-year U.S. bond yield of 0.16%, up 1 basis point during the day, and 30-year are erased Thursday’s decline.
European government bond prices fell on Friday, yields resumed their upward trend. British 10-year benchmark bond yields rose 2 basis points to 0.774% during the day; German bond yields rose 3 basis points to -0.30% during the same period. This week, British bond yields fell by more than 2 basis points, giving back part of last week’s decline; German bond yields rose by about 3 basis points and continued to climb.
The dollar index came out of a two-week low but ended a three-week streak of gains Bitcoin approached $59,000 intraday but accumulated losses for the week Ripple rose nearly 80% for the week
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which tracks the exchange rate of a basket of six major currencies of the U.S. dollar, hit a two-week low in consecutive days, rebounded and only had a short decline in early Asian trading throughout the day, and maintained gains at other times, with U.S. stocks rising above 92.40 as they set a new daily high before the bell, up nearly 0.4% during the day, coming out of the intraday trough set on Thursday when it fell below 92.00 since March 23, with U.S. stocks gradually giving back most of their gains after the opening bell.
By Friday’s U.S. stock market close, the dollar index at 92.17, up 0.12% intraday, but the week’s cumulative decline of nearly 0.9%, ending a three-week winning streak; Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1%, also out of a two-week low.
Bitcoin (BTC) in the European stock market, the U.S. stock market before the day had approached $ 58,900,000 to refresh the daily high, compared with the intra-day low in Asia rose more than $ 1,200, since then retracted some of the gains, the U.S. stock market once fell below $ 58,000, the U.S. stock market closed at $ 58,500,000 above the recent 24-hour rise of about 0.6%, compared with Friday’s closing session cumulative decline of less than $ 500.
The second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization, Ether (ETH) had risen to the $2,100 mark during the European session, up more than 2% from the intraday low, and had fallen below $2,050 during the U.S. session, with the U.S. closing at around $2,080, up nearly 0.2% cumulatively in the last 24 hours. Mainstream cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin all accumulated gains this week, with the biggest gainer being Ripple (XRP), which rose more than 76%.
CoinMarketCap data shows that most of the mainstream cryptocurrencies rose on Friday, by the end of the U.S. stock market, Ripple (XRP) accumulated nearly 7.6% in the last 24 hours, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) accumulated more than 0.8%, BTC rose 0.6%, Litecoin (LTC) rose nearly 0.5%, ETH rose nearly 0.2%, Dogcoin (DOGE) rose 1.7%. Most of the cryptocurrencies are up this week, with XRP up the most, XPR up nearly 76.2% in the last seven days, BCH up about 9.7%, LTC up more than 8.9%, DOGE up nearly 6.8%, ETH up nearly 0.3%, but BTC down nearly 1.3%.
U.S. oil fell more than 3% this week in two straight negative streaks.
International crude oil futures stayed down for most of the day after turning lower in early Asian trading on Friday, only turning up briefly in mid-day European and early U.S. trading. Brent crude fell about 1% intraday as it broke below $62.60 to set a new daily low, and U.S. WTI crude fell more than 0.8% as it set a new daily low.
Finally, WTI May crude oil futures closed down $0.28, or 0.47%, at $59.32/barrel, down two days in a row, while Brent June crude oil futures closed down $0.28, or 0.39%, at $62.95/barrel, both the lowest closing levels in the last four trading days. This week, U.S. oil fell 3.47%, giving back nearly 0.8% of last week’s cumulative gains, and Brent oil fell 2.94%, ending a two-week winning streak.
Copper loses $9,000 again but reverses three-week losing streak Gold falls to six-week highs but bullion ends two-week losing streak
London base metals futures closed lower collectively on Friday for the first time since March 25. Lead fell for two days in a row, copper lost the $9,000 barrier again, nickel and aluminum fell to one-month and two-week highs respectively, zinc ended a three-day streak and fell off a more than two-week high, and tin fell to its lowest trough of the week. In only four trading days this week, copper rose more than 1.5%, ending a three-week losing streak.
New York gold and silver futures both retreated, COMEX June gold futures closed down 0.8% at $ 1744.80 per ounce, down from the main contract closing high set on Thursday since February 25, but this week’s cumulative gains of about 1.0%, both futures silver to end a two-week losing streak. New York silver futures closed down 1% on Friday, ending a three-day streak of gains, up 1.51% for the week.
Recent Comments