(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street headed higher on Monday in early trading as the S&P 500 attempted to turn its back on its worst week in nearly three months.

At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones index took up 0.7% to 34,109.9 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained an increase of nearly 0.9% to 11,820.7 points.

The S&P posted a gain of more than 0.7% to 4119.5 points, after falling 2.4% last week, its worst weekly performance since mid-December.

Investors see it as an opportunity to pick up some bargains amid growing optimism about the economic outlook.

Today, it is the European data that particularly encourages optimism, with the prospect of a recession receding day by day on the Old Continent.

The European Commission this morning raised its growth forecast for the euro zone in 2023, anticipating an increase in activity of 0.9% this year, against only 0.3% in its previous forecast for November.

In the absence of key indicators, investors are awaiting US inflation figures, which will be published tomorrow, before taking a position.

While consumer prices should have picked up again on a monthly basis in January, the annual inflation rate should have slowed markedly due to a marked base effect.

The improvement observed on Monday can also be explained by the decline in yields on 10-year US government bonds, whose rise had contributed to the decline in equity markets last week.

After crossing the 3.75% threshold upwards, this long benchmark rate is back below the 3.72% mark this morning.

While waiting for the inflation figures, the VIX, the index measuring the implied volatility of the S&P, nibbles 0.8% to 20.7 points, above its average over the period 2012-2019 (15.2) but below that of 2021 and 2022 (23.4).

Copyright (c) 2023 News Bulletin 247. All rights reserved.