S&P, Nasdaq green, DJI red; chips outperform, transports weak Cons disc leads S&P 500 sector gainers; utilities down most Crude gains; dollar, gold, bitcoin down U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield ~1.58% Nov 18 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com CHIP INDEX HITS RECORD AS NVIDIA EYES $1 TRILLION CLUB (1230 EST/1730 GMT) Wall Street"s semiconductor index is surging to record highs on Thursday, lifted by a rally in Nvidia after the graphics chipmaker"s quarterly report beat lofty expectations and fueled enthusiasm about its opportunity to become a major player in the so-called metaverse. Nvidia (NVDA.O) is jumping nearly 10% to $319 and is on track to close at its highest level ever after it forecast revenue above analysts" estimates. The Silicon Valley company is betting on rapid growth in its data center business as more internet companies invest in artificial intelligence and virtual reality platforms. Nvidia"s rally is helping to drive the Philadelphia Semiconductor index (.SOX) up 1.8%, putting it on track to close at its highest level ever. The chip index is now up 39% in 2021, far outpacing the S&P 500"s (.SPX) 25% gain. Nvidia"s market capitalization topped $800 billion, with the stock now up almost 150% year to date. In a research note entitled, "The First Trillion Dollar Semiconductor Company," Needham & Company analyst Rajvindra Gill raised his price target for Nvidia to $400 from $245. Also buoying the chip index, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), which also stands to gain from the metaverse, is jumping 3%. (Noel Randewich) ***** EUROPE: A DIP! WE HAVE A DIP! (1206 EST/1706 GMT) A late risk-off move in afternoon trading has sent the pan-European STOXX 600 to close in negative territory, which has only happened once so far this November. Yields in government bond dropped, with the bund going down close to 4 basis points to -0.280%, leaving just a few rate sensitive sectors to rejoice, like real estate stocks, up 0.6%. It was definitely not a day for the reflation trade with banks down 1%, mining losing 1.6% and oil and gas retreating 1.8%. All in all, the STOXX 600 lost 0.5% which, in the grand scheme of things, leaves it only three little points from yesterday"s 490.58 points all-time high. Paris" CAC 40 and Frankfurt"s DAX both ended about 0.2% lower but are still obviously within striking distance of the historic peaks touched earlier in the session. With most of the upbeat Q3 earnings season now behind us and European stocks hitting records every other day, some investors may have felt reluctant to further long the STOXX 600. There are still, however, many analysts for whom there"s still some upside left. Mark Haefele, CIO at UBS GWM, wrote in his daily note this morning that given that policy remains supportive, full lockdowns unlikely and the earnings recovery on track, further gains are possible moving forward. "Eurozone equities remain one of our most preferred regions", he said, adding that with low or negative government bond yields in the region, MSCI EMU valuations could raise from 16 times 12-month forward earnings to 17. df df (Julien Ponthus) ***** CREDIT CONDITIONS STILL FAVORABLE FOR STOCKS (1127 EST/1627 GMT) Jack Ablin, chief investment officer and founding partner at Cresset, is out a note discussing credit conditions, and what he thinks they mean for stocks at this time. Ablin says credit conditions are a valuable barometer for managing market risk. In this regard, he says you want to stay invested when credit conditions are favorable and cut back on risk when credit conditions turn negative. He says that the yield premium lenders require to extend credit to lower-quality borrowers is an important means to gauge credit conditions. A low yield premium implies favorable credit conditions, while a sudden rise in this measure suggests lenders anticipate trouble and require higher compensation. Cresset’s credit conditions model defines “favorable conditions” as when the yield premium, or spread, is trading below 90% of its 200-day moving average and “negative conditions” as when the spread is trading more than 110% above this long-term moving average. According to Ablin, since 1998, holding the S&P 500 during favorable credit conditions and shifting to cash when credit conditions turn negative would have bettered the S&P 500 by over 130 percentage points. He adds that, right now, Cresset"s credit condition metrics are saying to "hold the S&P." "We will continue to monitor credit conditions, on the lookout for our next opportunity to reduce equity market risk and declare victory on this bull market." (Terence Gabriel) ***** THURSDAY DATA: "MEH" IS THE WORD (1104 EST/1604 GMT) Relatively unexciting data arrived on Thursday in triplicate, singing a song market participants by now have learned by heart: while the economy is improving, its progress is being hampered by labor and materials shortages. The number of U.S. workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits (USJOB=ECI) barely budged last week according to the Labor Department. Initial claims came in at 268,000, higher than consensus, shaving a mere thousand from the previous week"s upwardly revised number. read more Still, they reached the lowest level since the onset of the COVID crisis. The trend remains downward, hovering at the top end of the range associated with healthy labor market churn and drawing ever-closer to pre-pandemic levels. But to what extent can we thank the worker drought for the downward trend? "Layoffs are falling, reflective of companies holding on to workers amid a labor shortage," writes Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. "We expect supply to come back online, as the cushion from savings diminishes, and assuming the threat from the virus continues to recede over coming months." Ongoing claims (USJOBN=ECI), reported on a one-week lag, posted a bigger-than-expected drop, falling to 2.08 million. For context, the number of Americans collecting unemployment insurance benefits for two weeks or more could populate the city of Austin, Texas twice over. Jobless claims Jobless claims Separately, it"s official: east coast factories have shifted into overdrive this month. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve"s Business index (aka Philly Fed) (USPFDB=ECI) delivered a print of 39, 15 points above economist forecasts and a solid acceleration from October"s 23.8. The report nicely echoed the Empire State index"s similar surge on Monday. Philly Fed/Empire State numbers above zero signify increased activity over the previous month. Broken down by components, the good news is that new orders went to the races and the six-month outlook improved. Less cheery is the downtick in the employment and capex indexes and the continued upward climb of the prices paid segment, further evidence that the ongoing supply drought of workers and materials are significant headwinds for manufacturing. "These numbers all suggest that supply chain pressures remain intense, but we expect to see a clear improvement over the next few months as chip supply rises and port logjams ease," says Ian Shepherdson, chief economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics.or Philly Fed Philly Fed Finally, the Conference Board (CB) had its say, releasing its latest Leading Indicators data (USLEAD=ECI). The index posted an October gain of 0.9%, a hair better than analysts expected and a solid improvement over the 0.1% September reading, and suggests "the current economic expansion will continue into 2022 and may even gain some momentum in the final months of this year,” according to Ataman Ozyildirim, CB"s senior director of Economic Research. "However, rising prices and supply chain bottlenecks pose challenges to growth and are not expected to dissipate until well into 2022," Ozyildirim says. He goes on to add that "gains were widespread among the leading indicators, with only the average workweek and consumers’ outlook making negative contributions." Consumer expectations are indeed more sour than leading indicators and recent consumer spending data might seem to suggest. The graphic below shows the leading indicator index compared with the "expectations" component of CB"s own Consumer Confidence data: Leading indicators Leading indicators CB"s leading indicator index is an amalgamation of ten economic data points, including jobless claims, stock prices, yield spreads, building permits and others. Wall Street appeared to be unimpressed by Thursday"s economic data however, with the three major indexes starting mixed but all trending red as the morning wore on. Economically sensitive smallcaps (.RUT) and transports (.DJT) were underperforming. (Stephen Culp) ***** S&P 500 BACK UP TO BATTLE ITS HIGHS (0951 EST/1451 GMT) The S&P 500 (.SPX) is slightly higher in early trade Thursday, putting it back up to battle its 4,701.70 November 8 record close. This after chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O) rallied on robust third-quarter results, while a fresh batch of positive retail earnings indicated strength in consumer spending against the backdrop of rising inflation. With its early rise, NVDA is providing the biggest boost to the benchmark index, and with a more than 2% gain, the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX) has jumped to a new record high. That said, the major averages are mixed, banks (.SPXBK) and transports (.DJT) are red, and more major S&P 500 sectors are down than up. The NYSE FANG+TM index (.NYFANG), which also counts Nvidia as a member, is up just modestly. Here is where markets stand in early trade: Earlytrade11182021 Earlytrade11182021 (Terence Gabriel) ***** MIGHT THIS JUNKY ACTION MESS UP THE S&P 500"s RISE? (0900 EST/1400 GMT) The S&P 500 (.SPX) ended Wednesday only about 0.3% below its record close just set on November 8. With roughly a month and a half of trading left to go in 2021, the SPX has already seen 65 record closing highs so far this year, which is the second most ever for a full year. The most ever was 77 in 1995. However, recent action in the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK.P), as a proxy for the high-yield sector, may be warning that the new highs party may draw to close, as action in the riskiest of corporate bonds, can potentially provide an important signal for the equity market. Although timing can be blunt, struggling high-yield price action can be a sign of less than buoyant sentiment, ultimately leading to equity market instability: SPXJNK11182021 SPXJNK11182021 JNK is not in gear with stocks in terms of its trend. On Wednesday, on a weekly basis, the ETF ended at an eight-month low even though the SPX is flirting with its recent record highs. Just since early 2020, in the wake of new record highs in stocks, S&P 500 tops of varying degree came in the wake of even minor weekly JNK divergence. Additionally, JNK is on pace to end below its 40-week moving average (WMA) for the sixth time out of the past seven weeks. The SPX has not closed below its 40-WMA since late-June 2020. Therefore, it may be important for the JNK to quickly reverse to the upside in order to keep pace with, and confirm, any S&P 500 on-going push to new highs. (Terence Gabriel) ***** FOR THURSDAY"S LIVE MARKETS" POSTS PRIOR TO 0900 EST/1400 GMT - CLICK HERE: