New York | Wall Street ends up

(New York) The New York Stock Exchange closed higher on Friday, setting two new records on the strength of a mixed employment indicator, which increases, in the minds of investors, the probability of an interest rate cut as early as September.

The NASDAQ index rose 0.90% and the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.54%, both hitting new closing highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.17%.

The NASDAQ has already broken 24 records since the beginning of the year, and the S&P 500, 34.

The day was marked by the Labor Department’s report, which showed 206,000 jobs were created in June in the United States.

This is more than economists’ projections, which were counting on 190,000 job creations, but investors were quick to put this figure into perspective.

In fact, the ministry revised downwards the data for April and May, cutting 111,000 jobs in total, net.

Moreover, the private sector created only 136,000 new jobs, less than the 160,000 announced by economists.

“It shows that companies are a little hesitant to hire,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital.

The New York market also noted the rise in the unemployment rate to 4.1%, its highest level since November 2021.

Friday’s data “shows that cracks are emerging” in the labor market, Cardillo insisted.

“From the Fed’s perspective [la banque centrale américaine]”Employment hasn’t fallen enough to warrant a rate cut this month,” said Bill Adams of Comerica Bank. “But the trend is clear. If inflation continues on its trajectory, the Fed should move rates in September.”

This idea played on the bond market, whose rates have eased significantly. The yield on 2-year US government bonds fell to 4.59%, a first in three months.

This inflection helped to keep the stock market indices in the green, Peter Cardillo stressed.

The lower rate environment benefited the technology sector, particularly large caps including Meta (+5.87%) and Alphabet (+2.44%), as well as semiconductor makers AMD (+4.88%) and Intel (+2.53%).

For once, Nvidia was one of the worst performers (-1.91%), hit by a recommendation downgrade from a New Street Research analyst, Pierre Ferragu, for whom the stock is “fully valued” and who no longer sees any room for improvement in the short term.

Tesla continued the rise it began in June (+2.08%), still driven by better-than-expected quarterly sales and the prospect of the presentation of its robot taxi on August 8.

For analysts at Wedbush Securities, the automaker “is the most undervalued artificial intelligence (AI) stock on the market.” However, it has already gained 50% in less than a month.

Contrary to the technology sector, heavy industry, energy and the financial sector struggled, such as JPMorgan Chase (-1.31%), Dow (-1.23%) and Chevron (-1.53%).

Macy’s gained ground (+9.54%), following information from the Wall Street Journal, according to which the two investment companies Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management have again raised their offer for the department store chain, now valued at 6.9 billion dollars.

Bitcoin fell to its lowest level in four months on Friday, dragging down most of the sector’s stocks with it, such as miners (cryptocurrency creators) Marathon Digital Holdings (-3.86%) and brokerage site Robinhood (-0.92%).