Despite the publication of sluggish retail sales in the United States in April, and disappointing industrial production, which paradoxically benefited the markets, the statistics plead in favor of prolonged support from the Federal Reserve.

Interest rates remained wise for the 2nd session after their gains at the start of the week, while WTI oil (+2.4%) regained much of the ground lost the day before. At the close, the Dow Jones index rose 1.06% to 34,382 points, while the broad S&P 500 index advanced 1.49% to 4,173 pts, and the Nasdaq Composite, rich in technology stocks and biotechs, jumped 2.32% to 13,429 points.

The Nasdaq lost 2.3% over the week and has now chained 4 weeks of decline in a row. Over the week, the Dow Jones fell 1.1% despite a new session record on Monday, at more than 35,000 pts, while the S&P 500 fell 1.4% over 5 sessions. On Friday, all eleven S&P 500 sector indices ended in the green, starting with energy (+3.1%), technology (+2.1%), communication services (+1.7 %), consumer discretionary (+1.8%) and financials (+1.5%). The Dow Jones was notably supported by Goldman Sachs (+2.8%), Salesforce (+2.7%), Boeing (+2.6%), Chevron (+2.6%) and Intel (+2.5). %).
After a plunge of around 15% in 48 hours, bitcoin zigzagged around the $50,000 threshold, which it dropped at the end of the day to return to $49,500 (stable over 24 hours) on the Bitfinex platform. Gold rallied to its highest since February, ending at $1,838.10 an ounce (+0.8%) for the June futures contract. The yellow metal recovered 0.4% over the week.