A deluge of absolute records for a solid-gold "3 Witches" session... just like the previous one, which crowned 7 weeks of consecutive rises with a series of annual (but not yet absolute) records.
The S&P 500 shattered the previous record of 4,800 with a gain of 1.23% to 4,840 points... but this performance almost pales in comparison with the +2% of the Nasdaq-100, which exploded above 17,000 to 17,317.317, in the wake of the SOX (semiconductor index), which broke its all-time record of 580Pts (from 12/27/2023) with a supersonic bang: +4Pts to 601, with the opening of a second consecutive gap (for the 1st time since 11/1/2023, but that was due to cheap buybacks after a -10% correction).
A bullish spiral worthy of the 'dot.coms' is gathering pace on a few 'hot issues' such as Nvidia (+4.2% at $595).
The stock has posted +20% since January 1, for a capitalization of nearly $1.500 billion, i.e. 25 times expected sales by the end of 2024 (and 100 times earnings).
Nvidia is now being followed by AMD: +7.1% this Friday and +18.5% since January 1... which is paying 'only' 10 times its estimated sales for 2024 and 40 times its earnings.
Broadcom also soared by +5.9% and Applied Material by +4.8%... and Microsoft (+1.2% this Friday and +6% since January 1) confirms its position as the world's #1 capitalization at $2.965 bn (for a PER of 33) ahead of Apple (+1.5% $2,962 bn), which has lost 0.5% this year.

And these records -surfing on the "A.I." theme- are set against a backdrop that is quite simply out of the ordinary -and certainly exceptional- as the week draws to a close with rates on the other side of the Atlantic -across the entire curve- under severe pressure, following the spectacular reversal in expectations of monetary easing favoured by investors since the end of November.

Even going back decades, it's hard to identify historic highs coinciding with yield rises from 25Pts to 27Pts in 72 or 96 hours... and even harder when the horizon for a rate cut suddenly recedes by several weeks.

The tension of the last 48 hours is reinforced by the jump in the Michigan confidence index of +9Pts to 78.8 this month, the highest since July 2021, while economists were forecasting a much less pronounced rise to around 70.
The survey component measuring consumers' judgement of the current situation reached 83.3 compared with 73.3 the previous month, while that measuring their expectations rose to 75.9, after 67.4 in December.
How could the FED justify cutting its key rates after a figure so close to euphoria (the Michigan index is now only 7% off its all-time high reached in 1978), and which backs up a strong rise in retail sales (+0.6% in December) and weekly unemployment back to its lowest level in 50 years?... synonymous with full employment, and persistent wage pressures.

The US 10-year T-Bond dropped to 4.1700% before falling back to 4.14%... which did not prevent it from achieving its worst weekly performance since mid-October 2023, with the '2-year' deteriorating by +2Pts to 4.37%, i.e. 25Pts over the past week.
Finally, the 'VIX' fell back by -6% to 13.30, after having validated a warning signal 48 hours earlier by rising to 14.8, its worst score since the peak of November 9-14.
A 'trap' signal that catches the most cautious off-guard... and provokes a kind of 'FOMO' (a wave of impulsive buy-backs 'at any price').

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