US equity markets rallied as investors continued to shrug off global trade tensions and instead focussed on a postive economic backdrop - Dow up +178-points or +0.72% The broader S&P500 rose +0.45%, with the technology, consumer discretionary and consumer staples sectors (all up ~1%) leading seven of the eleven primary sectors into positive territory. The technology-centric NASDAQ +0.69% to post a fresh record closing high (7,606.46) - its first since 12 March. Apple Inc (up +0.8% to US$191.83, taking the market capitalisation to US$943B) established fresh record intra-day and closing highs on the opening day of their Worldwide Developer Conference. Amazon Inc (up +1.4%) closed at a record high for a sixth consecutive session. Microsoft Corp. rose 0.9% after the software giant said it had agreed to buy software-developer platform GitHub for US$7.5B. Twitter Inc rose +3.36%, with S&P Dow Jones Indices announcing the company will replace Monsanto Company (+0.24%) in the S&P500 index. Netflix Inc (+0.52%) is set to join the S&P 100 in place of Monsanto Company . However, Facebook Inc fell -0.4% after the New York Times reported that the social media company made agreements with at least 60 makers of phones and other devices that gave them access to the personal information of users’ friends without their consent. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 index also posted a fresh record closing high, advancing +0.33% (to 1,653.37).
In US economic data, factory orders fell a more-than-expected -0.8% in April (led by a decline in commercial aircraft) versus consensus expectations for a -0.5% decline. However, the data for March was upwardly revised to +1.7% from a previously reported +1.6%.
