Wall Street up, Trump Media jumps; ASX set to rise

GameStop also tumbled after delivering a profit for the latest quarter and a drop in revenue from the prior year. It fell 15.3 per cent. It’s the original meme stock, predating Trump Media by years, where its price has often moved more on the sentiment of smaller-pocketed investors than on fundamentals like its profit and revenue.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were slipping on a day with few economic reports to shake things up.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.19 per cent from 4.23 per cent late Tuesday.

The week’s highlight for the bond market may be arriving Friday, when the US government releases the latest monthly update on spending by US consumers. It will include the measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use as it sets interest rates.

But both the US bond and stock markets will be closed that day for Good Friday. That could cause some anticipatory trades to bunch up on Thursday. It will also be the last day of the month and of the first quarter, which could further roil things.

The S&P 500 is on track for a fifth straight winning month and has been roaring higher since late October. The US economy has remained remarkably resilient despite high interest rates meant to get inflation under control. Plus, the Federal Reserve looks set to start lowering interest rates this year because inflation has cooled from its peak.

But critics say a broader range of companies will need to deliver strong profit growth to justify their big moves in price. Progress on bringing inflation down has also become bumpier recently, with reports this year coming in hotter than expected.

Still, the broad expectation among traders is for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting its main interest rate in June.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.

Chinese stocks were some of the worst performers, even as China’s central bank governor told a high-level business conference in Beijing that the ailing property industry was showing signs of recovery and that the impact from defaults of dozens of developers was limited. Stocks tumbled 1.4 per cent in Hong Kong and 1.3 per cent in Shanghai.

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