(News Bulletin 247) – The month of September started on an undecided note on Friday on Wall Street, but green prevailed over equities, despite a sharp deterioration in bonds (+10 basis points on the ’10 years’ to 4.195%) which has been largely ignored.

Green for the Dow Jones (+0.33% and +1.5% in weekly gain) and the S&P 500 which gained 0.18% (+1.9% over the week) at the end of its fifth progress session out of six.

The Nasdaq Composite (-0.02%) failed in extremis to register a sixth consecutive session of increases, but gained +2.4% on a weekly basis. The Nasdaq-100 fell -0.07%, but gained +2.9% over the past week, returning to 2% of its annual high of 15,900.

Intel was the locomotive of the ‘technos’ with +4.2% and the Nasdaq closed in the red initially held to -5% from Tesla and -5.5% from Broadcom, the latter having unveiled prospects disappointing for the end of 2023.

The highlight of the week was the publication of the ‘NFP’ and on the spot, Wall Street reacted well, suggesting good gains in the morning (+0.5 to +0.7%). .. but rising oil and rate pressures dampened buyers’ enthusiasm ahead of a three-day weekend.

According to the Labor Department, the US economy added 187,000 non-farm payrolls in August, slightly above expectations, but job creations for the previous two months were revised down sharply by -110,000.

The unemployment rate also increased by 0.3 points to 3.8% (with the arrival of the seasonal contingent of new graduates looking for jobs) and the active population (labor force participation rate) rose by 0.2 points to 62.8%.

The average hourly income grew at an annual rate of 4.3%, a rate slightly higher than ‘gross’ inflation (but this will not last given the coming increase in fuel prices).

Activity in the US manufacturing sector contracted at an accelerated pace in August, according to S&P Global, whose PMI for the sector stood at 47.9 for the past month, down from 49.0 in July. .

S&P Global explained that a faster decline in new orders had led to a drop in production, while employment had seen its weakest increase since January and inflationary pressures had remained subdued.

The ISM manufacturing index published a few minutes later stood at 47.6 last month, after 46.4 in July, while remaining below the 50-point threshold, attesting to a contraction in activity in the sector. .

The ‘fact’ of the day was above all the rise in the price of oil, which took up +2.8% to $86 on the NYMEX (summer resistance of $85 largely exceeded), the highest since the beginning of November 2022, which does not was not good for inflation, hence the pressure on US rates.

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