The year 2024 got off to a false start on Wall Street: while the Dow Jones climbed nearly 0.1% to 3,715 points, the S&P500 and Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 0.6% to below 4,743 points and more than 1.6% to 1,766 points respectively.

Questioning the outlook for US equities in 2024, BNY Mellon IM warned last week that "while a good year of returns is possible, the level of uncertainty remains high".

In his view, while the risks weighing on US equities have receded thanks to slowing inflation, it is "difficult to justify high valuations and strong earnings prospects in the current macroeconomic context".

Earlier in the session, S&P Global published a final US manufacturing PMI of 47.9 for the past month, compared with a flash estimate of 48.2 and after 49.4 for November, reflecting an accelerated contraction in the manufacturing sector.

This week will also see the release of other US data, such as the ISM indexes and the December employment report, as well as a number of quarterly corporate publications, including that of Walgreens.

In other stock news, Moderna soared 13.1%, the biotech lab's founder, Stéphane Bancel, having estimated in a letter to shareholders that the most optimistic five-year scenario established in 2018 was coming true.

Citigroup climbed 3.1% on the back of favorable comments from Wells Fargo, which reaffirmed its 'overweight' recommendation on the banking group's stock, with a price target raised from $60 to $70, even expecting the share to double over three years.

Bristol Myers Squibb gained 2.8% after the European Medicines Agency validated its marketing authorization application for repotrectinib in non-small cell lung cancer and solid tumors.

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