The DOW JONES index fell 290 points or 0.61% to 47,426.26 points. NVIDIA is the most penalized value, with a fall of 1.52%, while Microsoft gives up 1.10%. On the advance side, Chevron rises 0.68% and Walt Disney rises 0.50%.
The S&P 500 fell 0.64% to 6,805.55 points, while the Nasdaq fell 0.84% to 23,168.32 points.
Last Friday, in a half-paced session due to Black Friday, the three major indices closed positively, with the DOW JONES rising 0.61%, compared to the 0.54% that the S&P 500 advanced and the 0.65% that the technology company gained. Nasdaq. For the week as a whole, the Dow advanced 3.2%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 3.7% and 4.9%, respectively.
Volatility was the dominant theme during November, with investors torn between expectations of Fed rate cuts in December and suspicions that technology stocks linked to artificial intelligence are overvalued. The Dow Jones, which reached a new all-time high on November 12 at 48,254.82 points (48,431.57 intraday), ended up saving the month ‘in extremis’ with an increase of just 0.32%. The S&P 500 gained an even lighter 0.13%.
However, the technology Nasdaq ended up falling 0.91%, breaking a seven-month advance. At one point in November, the technology index fell almost 8% compared to the end of October.
Looking ahead to the beginning of December, seasonality plays in favor of Wall Street. The S&P 500 averages an advance of more than 1% in Decembermaking it the third-best month of the year for the benchmark since 1950, according to the Stock Operator’s Almanac. This year, however, analysts aren’t sure there will be seasonal momentum, given persistent uncertainty that has caused stocks to deviate from usual trends. “None have performed the way they have seasonally,” warns Amy Wu Silverman, head of derivatives strategy at RBC Capital Markets, in statements to Yahoo Finance.
In the macroeconomic section, investors will know today, with the day already started, the manufacturing PMI and ISM Manufacturing figures for November, although the great reference of the week will be the publication on Friday of personal consumption price index (PCE) of the month of September.
This reference should have been published more than a month ago, but was postponed due to the federal government shutdown. It will be the last major reference before the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets on the 9th and 10th of this month. For now, market operators give a probability of 87.6% that in this meeting there will be a rate cut of 25 pointsaccording to CME Group’s Fedwatch tool. The probability that they will continue in the current range, between 3.75% and 4.00%, is only 12.4%.
Please note that this afternoon Fed Chairman Jerome Powell participates in a conference at Stanford Universityin what will be his last intervention before the Fed meets. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has assured that he has already decided who will succeed him as head of the Fed. “I already know who I am going to choose,” Trump declared to the media on Sunday night aboard Air Force One, although he did not reveal the name of the chosen one.
In fixed income, always very aware of monetary policy, the yield on the ten-year US bond stands at 4.043%.
Leading values: NVIDIA, Merck and more
On the business front, investors will have to continue to monitor NVIDIA’s price. The semiconductor giant, a big favorite of artificial intelligence stocks, was however the worst value of the Dow Jones during November, accumulating a fall of 12.58% in the month. And that during this month it presented better than expected quarterly results, with a record of 57,000 million in revenue.
Today the company is in the news after announcing that it has invested $2 billion in Synopsys common stock as part of a strategic alliance to accelerate artificial intelligence computing and engineering solutions. The operation has been carried out at a price of $414.79 per share. Synopsis shares soared 7% in New York morning, the most bullish in the S&P 500, while NVIDIA moved downward for another day.
Faced with the falls of NVIDIA, the pharmaceutical sector was the main protagonist of the advances in the Dow Jones, with Merck&Co (+21.9%), Amgen (+15.7%) and Johnson&Johnson (+9.5%) leading the index.
This week the trickle of quarterly results will continue with the accounts of companies such as Dollar Tree, Dollar General and Five Below. Technology companies Salesforce and CrowdStrike will also publish their reports.
It is essential to also talk today about the values linked to cryptocurrencies, after Bitcoin has fallen below $86,000 before recovering part of the losses. The shares of Strategy, a company closely linked to the popular cryptocurrency due to its large purchases of it, fell 4.6%, while the Coinbase trading platform fell 4.70%.
In analyst recommendations, Wynn Resorts advances 2% after Goldman Sachs has included the hotel and casino chain on its ‘conviction buy’ list. Goldman has said the company has a leading business in Las Vegas, while improvement in China’s Macau region can drive transformative growth.
In raw materials markets, oil prices are rising after OPEC+ members reaffirmed a plan to keep production stable, while the Caspian Pipeline Consortium has paralyzed exports after a major drone attack and tensions between the US and Venezuela raise fears for supply. US West Texas oil futures rose 1.54% to $59.45 per barrel, while European benchmark Brent crude advanced 1.47% to $63.30.
The euro advances today by 0.37% against the dollar, leaving the exchange rate at $11.1637 for each single currency.