Disappointment on Wall Street: what was supposed to be a rebound session ended in a downturn that spared virtually no sector, and especially not semiconductors, which fell by an average of -3%.

US indices saw their declines range from -0.12% for the Dow Jones, -0.5% for the S&P500, and the Nasdaq fell by -1.15%, the Russell-2000 by -0.9%, towards 1.950 (it ended at its lowest point since February 7 and has now lost -3.5% since January 1: 2024 is starting to look more and more like 2023 for the 'small Caps').
The Nasdaq-100 falls -1;25% in the wake of ASML -7%, Autodesk -6%, AMD -5.8%, Lam Research -5.3%, KLA -5%, Micron -4.5%, Applied Materials -4.4%, Nvidia -3.9%, Broadcom -3.5%... (the 'SOXX' sector index fell by -3% to 210.50).
Paradoxically enough, the easing of bond yields did not support the 'technos', which is rather difficult to explain (the previous day's fall was perfectly coherent given that yields had returned to their worst levels since the end of November).

With economic indicators in the USA surprisingly on the up, investors are focusing on the resilience of the economy, which would compensate for the disappointment on the money front.

Investors want to continue to believe that yields - now at their highest in 15 years - will only cause limited damage to the real economy.
The day's economic agenda was devoid of any news, with the FED also remaining mute in the wake of J. Powell's statement.

Powell seems to be ruling out the prospect of a rate cut in June, and suggests that only 2 rate easings will be on the agenda in 2024.
Rates will therefore remain above 5.25% for another 6 months, a much longer hold than in previous up/down cycles (the 'plateau' lasts 6 months on average, 9 months at most over the past 30 years).

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