It came down to nothing... the 'S&P500' came very close to recording its 7th consecutive session of gains, but in the very last exchanges (sometimes 10% of the day's volume in the last 60 seconds before the final bell), buying programs ran out of a tiny liquidity deficit.

The Nasdaq, on the other hand, held on to its gains (+0.3% to 16,388) and recorded its best close since April 11 (which was also the best ever, at 16,442), 0.35% away from a new all-time high.

The Nasdaq-100 settled at +0.2% to 18.200, driven to its highs by 2 rather "defensive" stocks, Moderna (+7.1%) and Walgreens (+5.4%), followed by Sirius (+3.6%), On Semiconductors (+2.8%), Intel (2.2%) and Tesla (+2%).

But the advance of the "technos" was held back by Paccar -2.1%, Meta -1.8%, Booking -1.6%, ASML -1.4%, AMD -1%

The session - seemingly so calm - was marked by 2 unexpected bouts of volatility: the 1st concerned a sudden burst of apparent stress on the 'VIX', which inexplicably jumped +8.4% to 13.60 (from 12.55 on Friday), while the S&P500 ended at zero, with volumes among the lowest of the year, with only 29 million 'SPY' contracts traded.

The second 'phenomenon' was the sudden resurgence of speculative hysteria on 'viral stocks' such as GameStop, which posted up to +100% during the session (+75% at close)... generating $1bn in losses for short sellers, forced to buy back in a climate of panic and 'Delta' anomalies (call options posted insane values) not seen for 4 years.

The same happened to AMC, with a 75% rise that was completely unjustifiable from a "fundamental" point of view, but was linked to the reappearance on social networks - for the first time in 3 years - of "Roaring Kitty", one of the most followed influencers and activists (during the Covid confinements of early 2021s 2021) by a community of 'risk-taking followers' - taking the stock market as one of their video games - invited to launch 'raids' against short sellers (who were handing them the stick to be beaten).

The resurgence of absurd, irrational and 100% speculative stock market movements, in a market deserted by real investors (and bored stiff by lack of volume), is the marker of a deleterious psychological state that should be taken seriously.


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