Wall Street hesitated throughout the session on Monday, after its correction on Friday caused by a downward turn in Nvidia shares. The S&P 500 drops another 0.11% to 5,117 pts, the Dow Jones regains 0.12% to 38,769 pts and the Nasdaq falls by 0.41% to 16,019 pts, while investors are cautious while awaiting the figures of the US inflation on Tuesday for the month of February. Bitcoin reached new highs, up 4% over 24 hours and almost 9% over a week, to more than $72,000. On the Nymex, a barrel of WTI crude is at $78. An ounce of gold gains another 0.1% to $2,186. The dollar index gained 0.2% against a basket of currencies.
Note that the United States has already switched to summer time this weekend and that the Wall Street session therefore takes place from 2:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. (French time).
There were no notable statistics in the USA this Monday. So the serious things begin on Tuesday with the consumer price index for the month of February at 1:30 p.m. (FactSet consensus +0.4% compared to the previous month and +0.3% excluding food and energy, or +3.1 % and +3.7% respectively, compared to last year). The February budget deficit will also be known Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. (consensus -$238 billion).
On Wednesday, operators will follow at 3:30 p.m. the weekly report from the Department of Energy on domestic oil stocks, for the week ending March 8.
Thursday, the program will be quite busy, with weekly unemployment registrations for the week ending March 9 (consensus 217,000, announcement at 1:30 p.m.), the producer price index for the month of February (same time, consensus +0 .3% compared to the previous month and +0.2% excluding food and energy; +1.1% and +1.9% year-on-year), as well as February retail sales (1:30 p.m., consensus +0, 8% compared to January, +0.5% excluding automobiles). Business inventories for the month of January will also be announced on Thursday.
Finally, on Friday, for Four Witches Day, investors will follow the New York Fed’s Empire State manufacturing index for the month of March (consensus -10), import and export prices for the month of February, industrial production numbers for February (consensus stable), and the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for March (consensus 77.4).
According to the FedWatch tool, the probability that the Fed will leave its rates unchanged at the highest in more than 20 years on March 20, between 5.25 and 5.50%, on the occasion of its next monetary meeting, is at 97%. The probability of an additional status quo on May 1, at the next meeting, now reaches 77.4%.
In corporate news on Wall Street, Oracle and Caseys General Stores publish their quarterly financial results after the market. Archer-Daniels and Kohl’s will announce theirs Tuesday. Lennar, Dollar Tree, Williams-Sonoma, UiPath and SentinelOne will release their accounts on Wednesday, while Adobe, Dollar General, Ulta Beauty, Wheaton Precious Metals and Dick’s Sporting Goods will be there on Thursday. Jabil will finally publish its detailed results on Friday…
Values
Nvidia (-2%) remains under surveillance on Wall Street… The American graphics and AI chip giant surprised Friday with a fall at the end of the session, dropping 5.5% to $875, after reaching earlier during the day a historic peak of $974. The market capitalization of Jensen Huang’s group even came close during Friday’s session to that of Apple, the second largest capitalization on Wall Street. Nvidia still weighs nearly $2.2 trillion following Friday’s correction.
MicroStrategy (+4.1%), which completed an issue of $800 million in convertible senior bonds maturing in 2030 to buy even more Bitcoin, also executed quickly. The group has just acquired 12,000 additional tokens for approximately $822 million. This is the second largest purchase in BTC for Michael Saylor’s software group. Thus, MicroStrategy, the main ‘corporate’ holder of Bitcoin, now owns 205,000 Bitcoin, which represents an amount of almost 15 billion dollars on the record prices of the day of the queen of cryptocurrencies – which currently exceeds $72,000. The group began its purchases in Bitcoin in 2020, in order… to hedge against inflation. MicroStrategy’s latest purchases were made between February 26 and March 10, according to declarations to the SEC, the watchdog of American financial markets. The average price of the latest purchases is around $68,500 per BTC.
Microsoft (-0.4%). The European Data Protection Supervisor rules that the European Commission’s use of the Microsoft 365 software suite violated EU privacy rules. The supervisory authority adds that the European executive has not implemented sufficient actions regarding the transfer of personal data to non-member countries of the bloc, reports Reuters.
Tesla (+1.4%). The Berlin gigafactory, deprived of electricity for a week following a fire claimed by a far-left group, could be powered again on Monday evening according to the service provider in charge of the issue. Furthermore, on a completely different note, Elon Musk indicated that his artificial intelligence company xAI would open the source code of its conversational robot Grok this week…
Apple (+1.1%), the Californian giant from Cupertino, which now faces tough competition in China, is preparing to open its eighth store in Shanghai this month, against a backdrop of slipping iPhone sales on the first global smartphone market… At least that’s what the Wall Street Journal says. iPhone sales in China would have fallen 24% year-on-year during the first six weeks of 2024, according to a study by Counterpoint. Apple therefore faces increased competition from Chinese national players such as Huawei. The American giant’s main rival in China in the field of high-end smartphones, Huawei, saw its unit sales soar by 64% over the same period. Counterpoint’s report shows that Apple’s share of China’s smartphone market has fallen to 15.7%, from 19% last year. Huawei rose to second place with a market share of 16.5%, compared to 9.4% a year earlier.
Boeing (-3%). The setbacks are still piling up for the American aeronautical giant… Delta Air Lines expects the receipt of its 737 Max 10 to be delayed, perhaps until 2027! Alaska Air, for its part, says it is cooperating with the US Department of Justice regarding the investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX, a fuselage part of which detached in mid-flight in January. Finally, a Boeing ‘Dreamliner’ operated by Latam Airlines reportedly experienced a technical problem in flight causing several injuries, reports Reuters.
EQT (-7.7%), an American natural gas producer, has agreed to buy its former unit Equitrans Midstream Corporation in a stock transaction worth approximately $5.5 billion…
