The scenario was rather unexpected: Wall Street seemed well on its way to ending in the red, but a spectacular rebound got underway at around 9.35pm... and sellers, caught off guard, had to redeem themselves in a hurry.

This was particularly evident in the last 10 minutes, which have become increasingly crucial in recent months as daily options expire, especially in the last session of the week and the month of May.

The S&P500 (+0.8% to over 5.277) gained a whopping +60 points in a straight line in 25 minutes, including +22 points in the last 10 minutes (in 'panic rally' mode)... and the 'VIX' plunged -10.5% to 12.9.

Same scenario for the Nasdaq Composite: off to a bad start at 6.30pm, down -1.7% to 16.450, it recovered all lost ground, including 160 points (+1%) in 30 minutes, to finish virtually stable at 16,735, with sustained buying on Zscaler +8.5%, Netapp +3.4%, Comcast +3%, Sirius +2.9%, Intel +2.2%.

This was one of the most spectacular trend reversals of the year, but if the index was unable to finish in the green, it was due to the heavy declines of MongoDB -23.5%, Dell -17.8%, Marvel -10.5%, SuperMicro -5.3%, Broadcom -2.6%, Lam research -1.9%, Amazon -1.6%, KLA -1.4%.... and Nvidia, which recovered from -2.5% to -0.8%.

As for the Dow Jones (+1.5% to 38.686), it regained the ground lost the previous day in one fell swoop: the best session of the year for this index succeeded the worst, with the same "star" as the previous day.

After having fallen by -19.5% on Thursday, Salesforce recovered +7.5%.... but this was not enough to propel the Dow Jones 550 points higher, and the index also benefited from gains by UnitedHealth +3%, Boeing +2.8%, Bank of America +3.5%, McDonald's and Chevron +2.7%.

In an attempt to put forward a factual reason for a stock market movement that appears irrational, it is logical to mention the improvement in T-Bonds: they eased modestly (-5 basis points on the 10-year at 4.503% and the same on the 2-year at 4.891%)... and the weekly record is not brilliant (+4 to +5 basis points).

In other words, the publication of the PCE price index - the most closely watched by the Fed - was a non-event: in line with expectations, the annual inflation rate remained stable in April, at 2.7% in gross data and 2.8% in 'core' terms (excluding energy and food).

The Commerce Department also reported a 0.2% increase in US household spending in April compared with the previous month, while household income rose by 0.3%, as expected by economists.

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