Wall Street was a little more hesitant on the eve of the weekend, but the overall bias remained positive: the three indices that broke new intraday or closing records lined up for a 17th week of gains, with only one weekly consolidation at the end of the first week of January.

The S&P500 (+0.03%) achieved double intraday/close records at 5,111 and 5,089 respectively, as did the Dow Jones (+0.16%) at 39,282 and 39,131. The Nasdaq-100 settled for the intraday record (18,091) and gave up 0.37% at the close at 17,937, in the wake of Apple -1%, Lam Research -1.7%, On Semiconductor -2.8%, AMD -2.9%, Marvell -3.3% and Booking -10%.

The downturn was held in check by the technical rebound of Palo +5.3% and rises by Zscaler +4%, Adobe +3%, PayPal +1.4%... and Nvidia, which shattered a record at $824 (+4.5%), retained only a symbolic advantage of +0.4%, at $788 (or +13.5% on a weekly basis).

Over the past week, the Dow Jones gained +1.3%, the Nasdaq +1.4% and the S&P +1.7%.

No stats on the agenda this Friday, February 23, but T-Bonds seemed to be benefiting from technical buybacks, with a spread that appeared to be in line with Bunds and OATs, i.e. -8 basis points towards 4.245%. But the figures published the previous day had no impact, while their absence did not prevent the T-Bonds from finishing the week well.

According to Christopher Dembik, economist at Pictet AM, 'Nvidia's excellent results are certainly much more important for the short-term trajectory of the stock market than any statistic or central bank decision'.

It's worth noting that at $824, Nvidia's market capitalization exceeded $2,000 billion (more than the GDP of Canada, South Korea or Russia). On Thursday, the stock also shattered the record for the biggest capital gain in history in 24 hours, with +$277 billion (more than the GDP of Portugal or New Zealand), well ahead of Meta and its +$200 billion three weeks earlier and Apple's +190 billion in December 2022.

Nvidia also broke the all-time record for the highest capitalization contribution to the S&P500 in seven weeks, with +$800 billion (equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland or Turkey), and for the highest activity in derivatives (a tsunami of call buying, a strategy that pays off, which is rare when everyone is "on the same side").

And the previous day's record for the highest sales of a single stock in a single session ($60 billion) was broken on Friday, with $64 billion (i.e. a month's trading for the CAC40, with an average of 22 sessions).

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