Wall Street largely contained the damage, cutting its initial losses by 50 to 70%: the Nasdaq Composite, which had fallen by -2.3% to 15,345, ended the day down just -0.64% at 15,612. The S&P500 dropped -1.6% to 4,990, but closed down -0.46% at 5,048, and the Dow Jones finally shed -1%, but easily preserved the 38,000 mark (at 38,086).

After the cold shower of US stats, investors seem to have focused on results, with the feeling that good surprises were in the pipeline with the publication of quarterly results from Alphabet, Microsoft and Snap. And indeed, the announcements from these three companies shattered even the most optimistic expectations.

But before these releases, New York was greatly upset by the US GDP for the first quarter, which came in at the opposite end of the consensus range: only +1.6% instead of the median estimate of +2.8%. Worse still, the underlying PCE inflation index (excluding food and energy) came in at 3.7%, versus the 3.4% expected by analysts.

In addition, jobless claims came in below expectations at 207,000 last week, versus 212,000 the week before (compared with 215,000 expected).

The fall in the bond markets initially weighed on equities, with yields tending symmetrically towards new annual records, as expectations of a September rate cut became a minority.

The 10-year yield thus jumped +5.5 basis points to 4.71%, its highest since late November, while the 2-year yield, up +6.5 basis points, just missed the 5% mark.

However, concerns over the Fed's agenda were swept aside in the after-hours by reports from Alphabet, Microsoft and Snap, whose shares jumped by 13%, 5% and 27% respectively in the after-hours. Intel, on the other hand, fell by 9% in electronic trading after its publication.

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