(News Bulletin 247) – Wall Street seems to be heading for a positive opening on Friday morning, which should allow the S&P index to complete a fifth week of increases in a row.

Half an hour before the opening, the contracts ‘futures’ on the Dow Jones, the S&P and the Nasdaq show gains ranging from 0.1% to 0.4%, announcing a continuation of the progression of the day before.

So far, investors have reacted rather well to announcements from the Fed, which nevertheless hinted this week that it was planning two more rate hikes by the end of the year.

The market wants to believe that the now well-established mechanism of disinflation in the United States will end up dissuading the Federal Reserve from tightening its monetary policy too much.

Despite the message of firmness displayed by Jerome Powell, stakeholders are convinced that he will do everything to promote a ‘soft landing’ for the economy, which could require an eventual easing.

‘Investors tend to underestimate the probability of future rate cuts’, underline analysts at Capital Economics in a note released on Friday.

Over the week, the Dow is currently up around 1.5%, the S&P 500 +3% and the Nasdaq +4%.

The good performance of the American stock market indices is once again due to the sparkling health of the technology compartment, which should once again post the best sector performance of the week (+5%).

With investors again putting the market risk linked to monetary policies into perspective, a rather calm session is looming today on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Michigan consumer confidence index, expected to rise, is the only indicator on the menu today, but a good surprise could be welcomed by investors, who now seem to prefer to see the glass half full than half empty. .

The end of the session could nevertheless be marked by increased volatility due to the so-called ‘four witches’ configuration, characterized by the expiry of many option contracts and ‘futures’ on indices.

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