Daily summary: Nasdaq and DAX reach new all-time highs ⚡

• Wednesday's session on international stock markets brought a continuation of the sizable increases we have seen on many indices continuously for several days now.
•  The German DAX recorded its 5th consecutive upward session today, which additionally seems, at least for the moment, to confirm the overall upward trend on the index in the face of staying above the key 20,000-point barrier. Shares of the armaments conglomerate Rheinmetall rose nearly 2.5%, Hugo Boss gained nearly 7%, on a wave of comments from UBS.
• Eli Lilly & Co. reported that its weight-loss drug called Zepbound outperformed rival Novo Nordisk A/S's Wegovy  in the first direct study of the two drugs. Shares of Eli Lilly gain today almost 3% while Novo's dropped slightly 0.3%
• Wall Street opened the session higher, with U.S. indexes extending gains at the time of this blog post. The technology Nasdaq is gaining more than 0.9% and is largely driven by a 3% rebound in Nvidia shares, which are already up 8% since November 27. Amazon is also gaining nearly 2.5%, where investors are looking for opportunities for the company to become more active in the AI generative sphere.
• The focus of the stock market today has been on the software sector, with sizable gains in a number of stocks from companies such as Fortinet, Adobe, ServiceNow, and Salesforce, which benefited today by raising full-year forecasts and optimistic comments on Agentforce AI; the company's shares are up 8%. Declines were seen in the financial and energy sectors.

The key theme of the day today was ISM data for the service sector from the US. US ISM Services (for November) came in 52.1 vs 55.7 exp. and 56 previously

• ISM Prices Paid: 58.2 (Forecast 57, Previous 58.1)
• ISM Employment 51.5 (Forecast 53, Previous 53.0)
• ISM New Orders: 53.7 (Forecast 56.6, Previous 57.4)

US factory orders rose 0.2% MoM vs 0.2% exp. and 0.5% previously

US durable goods has been revised to 0.3% MoM vs 0.2% previously; core durable goods revised to 0.2% MoM vs 0.1% previously. The reading from the US indicated weaker-than-expected sentiment in this key area of the economy. However, the price sub-index (i.e., a report somewhat correlated with the CPI data) indicated that price pressures in the US economy remain at relatively high levels.

• We are also seeing considerable volatility in the commodity market. Precious metals are regaining ground today, with gold prices rising by 0.4% and silver by 1%. At the same time, we are seeing sizable declines in WTI crude oil, which is losing nearly 2% relative to yesterday's session.
• WSJ reported that sources say that Saudi Arabia is expected to decide tomorrow under OPEC+ to extend production cuts, initially supported oil, which broke above $74 per barrel; however, this one erased the gains and is losing almost 2%.

EIA Crude OIL US inventories change: -5.07M (Forecast-1.41M, Previous -1.844M)

• EIA Gasoline inventories: 2.36M  (Forecast, -1.03M Previous: 3.31M)
• EIA Distillate Inventories: 3.383M (Forecast -0.424M, Previous 0.416M)

• NATGAS loses 0.5%. Cocoa and coffee prices gain today; sugar and soybean futures declined only slightly
• Sentiment of the cryptocurrency market is very optimistic, although Bitcoin alone is consolidating around $96K. Ethereum is gaining more than 5% thanks to rising inflows into ETFs; spra part of the altcoin is posting double-digit gains while Algorand and Ripple are losing nearly 10%, erasing a small portion of recent gains.