News Recap • Week 49 2024

We got a series of macroeconomic data from around the world, along with a few more earnings reports and some pretty wild breaking news stories. Additionally, Bitcoin broke another milestone when it surpassed $100,000 for the first time ever.

Here's the breakdown.

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Market recap

Equities

• 🇺🇸 S&P 500 rose 0.96% to yet another all-time high. It’s now up 27.68% in 2024.
• 🇺🇸 Nasdaq Composite significantly outperformed the S&P with a 3.34% jump to a new record, extending its 2024 gain to 32.3%. The strength this week was fueled by Tesla, Amazon, and Meta which rose 12.77%, 9.21%, and 8.61% respectively.
• 🇪🇺 STOXX 600 rallied 2% for its best week since late September where it reached its all-time high. It’s now just 1.6% away from that level.
• 🇩🇪 DAX jumped 3.86% to a new record, surpassing 20,000 in the process.
• 🇯🇵 Nikkei 225 rose 2.31% to recover most of its losses from the past three weeks.
• 🇨🇳 Hang Seng gained 2.28% but remains well off of its October peak. The CSI 300 rose 1.44%.
• 🇮🇳 Nifty 50 rose 2.27% for its third straight week of solid gains after a 11% decline from October to November.

Currencies & Commodities

• The DXY inched up by 0.18% to 105.970.
• USD.CNH was one of the few among the main USD currency pairs that had some movement, gaining 0.5% for the week.
• Gold declined 0.66% to $2,632.66.
• The crypto market has gained 5.5% as of Saturday evening (CET), passing $3.5 trillion and reaching a new all-time high in the process. Bitcoin captured the headlines when it passed $100,000 (much more on that below), but is actually “only” up by 2.5% for the week. Ethereum outperformed with a 7.6% gain while Ripple (XRP) added another 9%.

Other

• The VIX fell another 5.48% to 12.77, its lowest level since July. It’s now back at historically low levels and indicates a highly calm and complacent equity market.
• The 10-year US treasury yield declined 0.6% to 4.155. The 2-year dropped 1.37%.

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US nonfarm payrolls data

The important nonfarm payrolls number rose by 227,000 in November, beating expectations for 214,000. The main contributors were health care (54,000 new jobs), leisure and hospitality (53,000), and government (33,000).

The number was also markedly higher than October’s measly 36,000 (and that’s after an upward revision). Hurricanes and a Boeing strike had a big impact on that number though.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% to 4.2%, also in line with expectations.

Wages grew 4% on a 12-month basis, slightly higher than the 3.9% forecast but still a lot lower than the almost 6% growth seen in 2022.

All in all, investors seemed to like the data. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.25% and 0.81% respectively while US bond yields fell to their lowest level in over a month.

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Slowing growth and unchanged rates in India

India’s central bank kept rates unchanged at 6.5% on Friday, as expected. The country simultaneously lowered its growth outlook for 2025 to 6.6%, significantly lower than its 7.2% forecast from October.

The Indian equity market seemed to shrug off the news though. The Nifty 50 was barely down on Friday and ended the week with a 2.27% gain. Perhaps the bad news had already been priced in through the index’ 11% decline in October and November.

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Bitcoin surpassed $100,000

The price of one Bitcoin surpassed $100,000 for the first time ever, peaking at $104,000 around 4 am UTC on Thursday. As I’m writing this on Saturday, the price is just below $100,000.

With close to 20 million bitcoins mined of the total 21 million supply, the new record also put the total market cap above 2 trillion.

The $100,000 mark is yet another crazy milestone on Bitcoin’s wild ride from idea in 2008 to nation state adoption and title as the 7th most valuable asset in the world.

And speaking of Bitcoin milestones, the recently-launched spot ETFs now hold more Bitcoin than the wallet belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin. Their 1.105 million BTC is currently worth around $110 billion.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust accounts for almost half of that, passing $50 billion in assets under management just 228 days after its launch. This was the fastest ETF to reach this milestone, beating the previous record by a magnitude of five.

Bitcoin is up almost 50% since the US election on November 5th and 140% in 2024. Three pieces of news seemed to fuel this last leg of the rally:

• The biggest story arguably came on Tuesday when Donald Trump picked Paul Atkins for SEC chair. If approved, he will replace Gary Gensler who recently announced his departure. Atkins is known for his support of innovation in the cryptocurrency space and his criticism of Gensler’s overregulation.
• Next up, Russian President Putin said on Wednesday that Bitcoin is inevitable and that the development of cryptocurrencies can’t be stopped. He further endorsed Bitcoin as a global reserve asset over the US dollar.
• Also on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in an interview that Bitcoin is a competitor to gold, not to the US dollar. While I think some people got a bit too enthusiastic about his comment, the fact that the Fed chair is even acknowledging and comparing Bitcoin to gold can definitely be seen as a positive sign.

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In other news

Macro

• Unemployment in the EU and eurozone remained stable for a third straight month at 5.9% and 6.3% respectively. The fact that the unemployment rate remained at historic low levels makes it unlikely that the ECB will deliver a jumbo rate cut at its next meeting on December 12.
• OECD released its most recent economic outlook, showing a 3.3% projected GDP growth in 2025. It also projects inflation to continue to cool, from an average of 5.4% in the G20 economies in 2024 to 3.5% next year.
• Available jobs in the US totaled 7.74 million in October, up from around 7.4 million in September and better than the 7.5 million expected. The ratio of available positions to unemployed workers rose to 1.1.
• Private payrolls in the US grew by 146,000 in November, falling short of the 163,000 forecast. Wage growth accelerated by 4.8%.
• US factory orders increased by 0.2% in October after a 0.2% fall in September. They rose 0.4% on a year-on-year basis. The data was in line with expectations.
• US services sector activity slowed to 52.1 in November from 56.0 in October, well below economists’ forecast for 55.5. However, the current level still shows solid economic growth.
• The French government was overturned by the opposition parties in a no-confidence vote for the first time in more than 50 years. The euro already fell 0.75% against the dollar on Monday when this started to look like a likely outcome.
• President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in South Korea, causing panic and unrest both on the ground and in the markets. Luckily, the parliament quickly voted to overturn his ruling after which he promised to lift the declaration. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index finished the week just 1.13% lower.
• China’s 10-year bond yield fell to a record low below 2%.
• Seasonally adjusted retail sales decreased by 0.5% in the euro zone and by 0.3% in EU. They were up by 1.9% and 2.1% compared to October last year though.
• Fed chair Jerome Powell reiterated that he’s not worried about the central bank losing its independence under Trump’s presidency, even if Trump would like to have more control.
• Donald Trump picked Peter Navarro as Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing.
• David Sacks, well-known VC investor and co-host of the All In Podcast, was tapped as ‘White House A.I. & Crypto Czar’. He has been a big supporter of Trump and closely involved throughout his campaign. “David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas”, Trump wrote.
• Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for gun and tax fraud charges.

Other

• Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Group’s insurance unit, was shot and killed in a targeted attack in New York.
• The Danish government announced that it will once again become the main shareholder in the Københavns Lufthavne, the company behind Denmark’s main airport Kastrup. The stock jumped 60% on the news for its best day ever.
• A Delaware judge upheld her ruling to block Elon Musk’s giant $56 billion pay package.
• Disney set a new record with an estimated $420 million in box office ticket sales during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday. Moana 2 led the charge with $221 million followed by $117.5 million for Wicked.
• Pat Gelsinger was ousted from his job as CEO of Intel after failing to deliver the expected results. The company has lost both market share and market value with shares down around 58% in 2024. The stock initially popped on the news on Monday but faded throughout the week, closing 13% lower.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the recent E. coli outbreak at McDonald’s is now over.
• Eli Lilly’s Zepbound beat Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy in a head-to-head trial with an average 20.2% vs 13.7% weight loss in 72 weeks. The two stocks unsurprisingly moved in opposite directions on the news, although the impact was pretty muted.
• Telecom giants Vodafone and Three are set to merge after the $19 billion deal was approved by UK regulators.
• A federal appeals court upheld a law ordering China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the US.

Earnings

• Salesforce reported $9.44 billion in revenue vs $9.34 billion expected but slightly missed on earnings with $2.41 per share vs $2.44 expected. Revenue grew 8% year over year during Q3. Net income rose 25% from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion. The stock jumped 11% to a new record high on Wednesday after the report.
• Foot Locker fell short on both revenue and earnings. The latter came in at just 33 cents per share vs 41 cents expected. Forward guidance didn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Shares fell as much as 20% on Wednesday after the report before paring losses to 9%.
• Docusign reported earnings of 31 cents per share, up from 19 cents last quarter and 37% higher than forecast. Revenue at $755 million was also above expectations. Shares vaulted almost 28% on the news.
• Lululemon earned $2.87 per share, beating estimates of $2.69. Revenue was also higher than expected at $2.40 billion, up 9% from a year ago. The company’s guidance came in slightly above forecast as well. Shares soared almost 16% on Friday and are now up 76% from the bottom in early August. And yet, they’re still down 22% for the year.
• Ulta Beauty delivered a big earnings beat with EPS coming in at $5.14 vs 4.54 expected. The company also raised its full-year earnings guidance. The stock jumped 9% after the report on Friday but is still down 12.6% for the year.
• Apparel retailer American Eagle reported revenue and earnings in line with expectations but cut its full-year guidance and gave a weak holiday forecast. Shares fell 13% on the news.