Wall Street Closes Without Direction, Another Record for NASDAQ and S&P 500

(New York) The New York Stock Exchange ended on a mixed note Monday, continuing the momentum of the last few days, seemingly confident in the indicators and results to come later this week.

The NASDAQ and S&P 500 indices gained 0.28% and 0.10% respectively, setting new closing records, while the Dow Jones fell 0.08%.

It’s the 35^e record of the year for the S&P 500 and the 25^e for the NASDAQ. The S&P 500’s all-time high in a calendar year was in 1995, with 77 peaks.

“This is the first day back after the long weekend,” marked by the American Independence Day holiday on Thursday, said Kim Forrest of Bokeh Capital Partners. “Often, the market returns to the mood it had before the break. And it was positive, particularly on technology stocks.”

The semiconductor riders have therefore resumed their gallop, led by the inevitable Nvidia (+1.88%), followed by Broadcom (+2.50%), AMD (+3.95%), Qualcomm (+1.04%) or Intel (+6.15%).

Taiwanese TSMC (+1.43%), listed in New York, even took advantage of the opportunity to briefly cross, for the first time, the symbolic threshold of a thousand billion dollars in capitalization.

“The market is holding on to five technology stocks,” Forrest said, noting that TSMC will be the first player in the sector to publish its results, on July 18. “That will give us a first glimpse of the trajectory of artificial intelligence” and the investments made in this technology.

A correction on Wall Street would necessarily involve, according to the manager, a slippage of one or more tech giants, with the rest of the market having much more moderate performances.

Earnings season opens Thursday with PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines, followed by banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup on Friday.

Operators are also awaiting the publication of the CPI consumer price index on Thursday, from which they expect a further slowdown.

In the absence of fresh news on Monday, the yield on 10-year US government bonds was stable at 4.27%.

On the stock market, Boeing was supported (+0.55%) by the announcement of an agreement with the US Department of Justice, which provides for the aircraft manufacturer to plead guilty to “conspiracy” aimed at deceiving the US government during the 737 MAX certification process.

This outcome spares the aircraft manufacturer a criminal trial, which could have had further repercussions on its already tarnished image.

But momentum faded after a notice from the US aviation regulator (FAA), which called for immediate inspections of oxygen generators on more than 2,600 737 family planes operating in the United States.

Media group Paramount Global fell 5.33% as investors coolly welcomed the terms of its announced merger with production company Skydance Media, whose shareholders will take control of the new entity.

Skydance investors will put more than $8 billion on the table, to become a majority shareholder in the merged group, but also to financially stabilize Paramount, which is heavily in debt.

Nike’s downward slide continues (-3.16%), after the downward revision of its targets at the end of June. The sports equipment manufacturer’s stock fell on Monday to its lowest level since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

Premium electric carmaker Lucid gained momentum (+7.85%) after reporting a 70% increase in deliveries in the second quarter. The group was led by electric truck specialist Nikola (+16.69%).