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The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index – as tracked by the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ – extended its relentless climb this week, setting new record highs and nearing the 22,000-point milestone, fueled by strong investor optimism in the Magnificent Seven tech giants and the transformative potential of artificial intelligence. Year-to-date, the index has posted a robust 30% gain, on track to outperform the S&P 500 for the ninth time in the last decade. Since the start of 2023, the Nasdaq 100 is on track to double, nearing a 100% gain – a performance last achieved in 2019-2020 with a 102% rise and previously hit during the dot-com boom of 1998-1999. Notably, five out of the seven Magnificent Seven stocks— Apple Inc. AAPL , Amazon.com Inc. AMZN , Alphabet Inc. GOOGL , Meta Platforms Inc. META , and Tesla Inc. TSLA — achieved fresh record highs this week. The combined market capitalization of the group exceeded $18 trillion, surpassing China's gross domestic product at the end of 2023. Broadcom Inc . AVGO emerged as the week's standout performer, soaring after a strong quarterly earnings beat and delivering upbeat AI-driven guidance for the coming year. The rally propelled the chipmaker into the exclusive $1 trillion market-cap club, making it the eighth-largest publicly traded company. Inflation data released during the week raised some red flags. Consumer inflation rose 2.7% year-over-year in November, in line with expectations, but producer inflation jumped to 3% year-over-year, exceeding estimates of 2.6%. This marked the sharpest increase since February 2023, raising concerns about potential cost pass-throughs to consumers. Investors are fully pricing in a 25-basis-point interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s Dec. 18 meeting. Yet policymakers may signal fewer rate cuts for 2025 — potentially just three — while leaving open the possibility of a pause as early as January. You may have missed... Trump Rings NYSE President-elect Donald Trump rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell on Thursday, expressing confidence in a strong U.S. economy. Trump was named TIME Person of the Year for the second time. GM Robotaxi Exit General Motors Co . GM plans to abandon its robotaxi ambitions, aiming to save $1 billion annually and potentially license Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology, says analyst Gary Black. Google’s Quantum Leap Alphabet's new Willow quantum chip showcases cutting-edge innovation. Analysts praise Google for advancing technology leadership, signaling potential breakthroughs in computing power and commercial applications. Read now: Fed’s December Meeting Could Crush Rate Cut Optimism For 2025 © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.‘Enron CEO’ Connor Gaydos hit in the face with pie in New York City
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Home | New PM Bayrou faces ‘long road’ against fractious French parliament French President Emmanuel Macron named key ally Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of 2024 on Friday, but the scale of the challenge facing the veteran centrist was immediately clear as the Socialist Party refused to join his coalition government. Bayrou, 73, gave a sober assessment of whether he could tame a hung parliament that ousted his predecessor, Michel Barnier, just last week. “It is a long road, everyone knows that,” he told reporters. “I am not the first to take a long road.” France’s festering political malaise has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term until 2027. It has also lifted French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump heads to the White House and Germany braces for new elections following the collapse of its governing coalition. Bayrou, the founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party which has been a part of Macron’s ruling alliance since 2017, has himself run for president three times, leaning on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the southwestern town of Pau. His immediate priority will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget, with a nastier battle over the belt-tightening 2025 legislation looming early next year. Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to Barnier’s downfall and left-wing leaders on Friday announced they might try to topple Bayrou as well should he use special constitutional powers to ram through the budget against parliament. Bayrou’s proximity to the deeply unpopular Macron may also prove to be a vulnerability. The Socialist Party, which Macron courted during his prime ministerial search, accused the president of ignoring their demands for a leftist leader in favour of a “risky” Macronista. “We will thus not enter the government and remain in the opposition,” said Boris Vallaud, the leader of the Socialists’ parliamentary bloc. VIEW FROM THE LEFT Reaction to Bayrou’s appointment on the left will be a concern for Macron, with the prime minister likely living day-to-day, at the mercy of the president’s opponents, for the foreseeable future. Macron will hope Bayrou can stave off no-confidence votes until at least July, when France will be able to hold a new parliamentary election. Far-left France Unbowed party leaders said they would be seeking to immediately remove Bayrou, while leaders from other left-wing parties took a more nuanced approach. Greens boss Marine Tondelier also said she would support a no-confidence motion if the prime minister ignored their tax and pensions concerns. Communist leader Fabien Roussel said his party would hold fire against Bayrou and decide on a case-by-case basis if he promises not to ram through legislation. Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally (RN) party, said it would not be calling for an immediate no-confidence motion, while fellow RN leader Marine Le Pen said Bayrou should listen to the opposition’s budgetary wishes. REAL TEST OVER 2025 BUDGET LOOMS Barnier’s budget bill, which aimed for 60 billion euros ($63 billion) in savings to assuage investors increasingly concerned by France’s 6% deficit, was deemed too miserly by the far-right and left. The government’s failure to find a way out of the gridlock has seen French borrowing costs push higher. XTB Research Director Kathleen Brooks said Bayrou’s appointment was unlikely to have a major impact on French bonds. However, she said the CAC 40 French stock index is underperforming German stocks by a three-decade margin. “With France still mired in political turmoil, narrowing this gap is an uphill struggle, even with a new PM,” she wrote. Macron named Bayrou as justice minister in 2017 but he resigned only weeks later amid an investigation into his party’s alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants. He was acquitted of fraud charges this year. SABC © 2024
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