Wall Street took its revenge this Wednesday, and in fine style: buyers regained control after a "failed" end to the previous day's session, when US indices lost between -0.5% and -0.6% in the final hour. A hiccup in the bullish momentum, the causes of which have yet to be fully elucidated, in the absence of any notable market movers.

The three main indices are once again in a position to break all-time records this Thursday, bringing to a close in style a first quarter that, with the exception of the first week of the year, has been entirely marked by a funicular rise.

What followed was a series of 10 out of 12 upward weeks (the two "missing" weeks ending in horizontal consolidation, with the previous week's gains never compromised). Wall Street has thus offered us a 22-week upward cycle, with gains of +25% to +28% over five months, including +12% since January 5th.

The Dow Jones has for once outperformed tech and the S&P500, with a 1.22% jump to 39.760, just 0.05% shy of its March 21 closing record (39,781), and the 40,000 target is well within reach for this last session of the quarter (with a modest gain of +0.6%).

The Nasdaq Composite came within 0.015% of its last peak, gaining 0.51% to 16,399. The S&P500 set its 21st closing record with a 0.86% rise to 5,248.5: the absolute zenith being 5,261 (set a week ago), beating it on Thursday evening again seems a mere formality.

This would make a 22nd annual record to cap the 22nd week of gains, a scenario bordering on perfection... if valuations weren't so stretched. Most of the equity markets' performance since the beginning of the year, and even over the last 18 months, is due to the expansion of valuation multiples", points out JPMorgan.

The S&P500 was propelled to new heights on March 27 by Marvell +5.9%, Intel +4.2%, On Semiconductors +3.7%, NXP +2.7%, Apple +2.1%, Tesla +1.2%, AMD +1%. Note the -2.5% pullback on Nvidia, which is still holding at $900.

Investors now seem to be waiting for further signs of good health in the US economy, and confirmation that inflation is easing, before continuing their upward trend. Thus, on Friday, they will turn their attention to the 'PCE' component of prices, the Fed's preferred measure of inflation.

In the meantime, the 'macro' news was summed up by US crude oil inventories, which stood at 448.2 million barrels for the week ending March 18, up 3.2 million on the previous week's level.

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