Balance prevailed on Wall Street, with US indices closing within narrow limits: the main thing is that weekly gains (+1.9% for the S&P500, which clawed back 0.08% on Friday, to 4.783) make up for the 1st week's losses, and the annual balance sheet is back in the green.
Note that the S&P has broken through the 4,800 barrier for the 1st time in intraday trading since January 4, 2020.

The Dow Jones index gave up 0.3% to 37.593, while the Nasdaq finished up in extremis by a symbolic 0.02% at 14,972

The suspense lasted until the last second, as Wall Street indices made a foray into the green at the start of the session before falling back significantly at midday, apparently following the publication of the US Producer Price Index (PPI) and the contrasting results of the banking giants, which opened the quarterly publication ball.


While JPMorgan (-0.7%) reassured investors with solid fourth-quarter accounts, despite a -15% drop in earnings, Citigroup posted a $1.8 billion loss due to heavy charges and Wells Fargo (-2.3%) saw its provisions for bad debts climb, Bank of America (-1.05%) suffered a -56% drop in earnings, weighed down by exceptional charges and a fall in deposits.

Tensions in the Middle East rose again overnight, as the United States and the United Kingdom carried out strikes against Houthi rebel installations in Yemen.

This put pressure on oil prices, with WTI posting a gain of 1.3% to $73.8, as did gold, which climbed back (+1.5%) towards its all-time highs (at $2,062).

On the economic front, the Labor Department announced that producer prices fell by 0.1% on a gross basis in December, but rose by 0.2% excluding food, energy and business services.

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