(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street ended the week with a bang, following the publication of a less strong inflation measure than expected: on Friday, the Dow Jones climbed 1.3% to 33,274 points, the S&P500 took 1.4% to 4109 points and the Nasdaq Composite was awarded 1.7% to 12222 points.

The publication, before the opening of the session, of statistics deemed reassuring on the evolution of consumer prices in the United States has reinforced the recovery made by the American markets.

Indeed, while US household income and spending increased by 0.3% and 0.2% respectively in February, as expected, it was above all an unexpected decline in the ‘PCE’ deflator that caught the eye. .

This index, which is closely monitored by the Fed, increased by 5% over one year in February, including a 4.6% increase excluding food and energy, annual rates down from their levels of 5.3% and 4.7% from January.

‘These figures confirm Jerome Powell’s diagnosis of the ongoing disinflation and are rather good news,’ reacted Christophe Boucher, investment director at ABN Amro Investment Solutions.

Given the recent turmoil in the banking sector, the manager believed that the cycle of US central bank rate hikes was now nearing an end, a prospect that could support equities.

In this context, operators took little account of a consumer confidence index from the University of Michigan which was revised down to 62 for the month of March, against 63.4 in the preliminary estimate and 67 in FEBRUARY.

As for values, BlackBerry jumped 14%, the Canadian specialist in security and privacy technologies having reassured about its prospects during the presentation of its quarterly results on Thursday evening.

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