Market Overview

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell praised the "significant progress" on inflation, although he reiterated that the Fed is not yet ready to cut interest rates. This was interpreted as dovish by the market. U.S. stocks opened lower but rebounded, accelerating towards the close, with $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ closing above 5,500 for the first time ever. The S&P 500, $Nasdaq Composite Index(.IXIC.US)$ , $Amazon(AMZN.US)$ , $Apple(AAPL.US)$ , and $Microsoft(MSFT.US)$ all hit new highs. Among the "Tech Seven," $NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$ performed the worst, dropping over 1%, while $Tesla(TSLA.US)$ surged 10%, marking its longest winning streak in about a year with a cumulative gain of nearly 27% over six days. $Eli Lilly and Co(LLY.US)$ fell less than 1% after initially dropping 3.9% following President Biden's call to lower the price of its weight-loss drug, despite gaining approval for its new Alzheimer's drug.

Powell's dovish remarks lowered the dollar and U.S. Treasury yields, with spot gold reaching its daily high during Powell's speech. Core inflation in the Eurozone remained high, and Le Pen stated that she would seek to form a government even without an absolute majority, leading European stocks to fall. The euro hit a two-week high, while the yen briefly touched its lowest level since 1986.

Oil prices pulled back but remained near their highest levels since late April, with WTI crude surpassing $84 intraday and Brent crude breaking above $87.