FX168 Financial News Agency (North America) News #US Stock Review# On Wednesday, Wall Street stocks continued to rise to record highs. A series of economic data slowed down and encouraged the hope of rate cuts. Due to the approaching US Independence Day holiday, trading ended early.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% to 5537.02, setting a new historical high for the second consecutive day and the 33rd time this year; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 23 points, or 0.1%, to 39308.00 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.9%, setting a new record the day before to 18188.30 points.

(Source: FX168)

(Source: FX168)

Nationwide's Head of Investment Research, Mark Hackett, said this is traditionally a strong period for Wall Street. He said the first half of July is the two best weeks the stock market has performed since 1928, and the S&P 500 has risen in July for nine consecutive years.

Economic report

A report said that in June, real estate, retail trade, and other US service sector activities contracted for the third time in 49 months. This data is lower than economists' predictions, and economists predict that economic growth will only slow down.

For Wall Street, perhaps more importantly, the report by the American Supply Management Association also stated that the rate of price increases is slowing down.

Earlier, there were reports that the job market was slowing down. A report said that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week was slightly higher than economists' expectations, but still at a relatively low level compared to history.

ADP's new non-farm employment in June in the United States was 150,000, the lowest in four months; the number of first-time jobless claims in the week of June 29 in the United States rose to 238,000, a new high since January this year. The two show that the labor market is cooling down, and the expectation of interest rate cuts is further heating up.

Wall Street's hope is that the economy will experience moderate weakness: enough to curb upward pressure on inflation, but not enough to make workers unemployed and trigger an economic recession.

A more anticipated report will be released on Friday, when the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the employment report for June. Currently, the market expects non-farm employment to drop to 190,000, lower than the 272,000 in May. The unemployment rate and hourly wage are expected to remain stable.

Bond market

The bond market performed even stronger, with US Treasury yields falling, as a series of reports showed that the job market and US service sector performance were weaker than expected. These data may make the Federal Reserve continue to implement the interest rate cut measures expected by Wall Street later this year.

The yield on 10-year US Treasuries fell from 4.44% on Tuesday night to 4.35%, which is a notable move for the bond market, and most of the decline occurred after the release of the US service sector report.

Since April, the yield has generally fallen due to hopes that inflation will slow enough to prompt the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate from its highest level in more than 20 years.

The 2-year US Treasury yield is even more closely related to the Fed's actions, and has fallen from 4.75% late Tuesday to 4.70%. Data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group show that traders are currently betting that the likelihood of the Fed lowering its main interest rate as early as September is close to three-quarters.

Focus stocks

Tesla rose 6.54%, boosting the market again, rising for the seventh consecutive day, and rising sharply in early trading to nearly 7.4%. Prior to this, the company reported that the spring sales decline was lower than analysts' expectations. On Wednesday night, Tesla officially announced on Weibo that the second-generation humanoid robot Optimus will make its debut at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai from July 4th to 7th, witnessing the further evolution of humanoid robots. Recently, Tesla's good news has been frequent. Wedbush raised its target stock price from $275 to $300.

The darling of artificial intelligence, Nvidia's stock rose 4.57%, making the chip company's gain this year a whopping 159%.

Constellation Brands' stock price fell 3.38%, fluctuating throughout the day. The company, which produces Modelo beer and Robert Mondavi wine, reported that profits for the latest quarter were higher than expected, but revenue was slightly lower than financial analysts' predictions.