S&P500 with a new record. Seven thousand points at your fingertips

Tuesday's session brought moderate gains on Wall Street. The S&P500 reached a new all-time high, aiming for 7,000 points. The Nasdaq and S&P500 ended positive for the fifth session in a row. The Dow Jones was hurt by the massive decline in UnitedHealth shares.

The S&P500 gained 0.41% on Tuesday and ended the day at 6,978.59 points. During the session, the historical record set only two weeks ago was slightly exceeded. However, the S&P 500 has gained less than 2% since the beginning of the year after gaining 16.4% in 2025.

Nasdaq added another 0.91% and finished with a score of 23,817.10 points. In the case of this benchmark, we have not seen new records since the end of October, when the Nasdaq Composite briefly exceeded 24,000 points. The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day clearly lower, losing 0.83% and falling to 49,003.41 points.

This was the result of a 20% decline in UnitedHealth shares (yes, the same one whose CEO was shot in broad daylight just over a year ago). The giant's stock in the medical “insurance” industry plummeted after President Trump's administration proposed a pharmacy-only increase in payments to private insurers under the government's Medicare Advantage program. In 2027, the fee is expected to increase by only 0.09%. Other large companies in this industry also recorded declines of 14-20%.

Shares of the courier company United Parcel Service, which announced that it expects higher revenue growth in 2026, rose only slightly (by 0.2%). Companies such as UPS or FedEx are often perceived as a barometer of the economic situation in the United States. The market also welcomed the quarterly report of General Motors, whose prices increased by 8.75%.

But the real excitement on Wall Street only appears on Wednesday afternoon. First, the Federal Open Market Committee will announce the decision on interest rates. Economists expect the federal funds rate range to remain unchanged at 3.50-3.75%.

The quarterly reports of California bigtechs may turn out to be even more important. After Wednesday's session, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Tesla will report their results. Additionally, we will learn the results of IBM and AT&T.

Has the American consumer given up the ghost?

Meanwhile, on the macroeconomic front, we recorded another – at least declarative – defeat of the American consumer. The Consumer Confidence Index prepared by the Conference Board dropped in January from 94.2 points. up to 84.5 points Some deterioration was expected, but the market consensus assumed a regression only to 90.9 points. This is the lowest reading of this indicator since May 2014 – over 11 years.

This result may suggest that while consumer spending in the US is still growing at a decent pace, the improvement in the financial situation may only affect the 10-20% of the best-off Americans. Moreover, the deterioration in the morale of the American consumer in January occurred regardless of political affiliation, and independent voters were the most pessimistic. Moreover, the availability of job offers has been rated the lowest in 5 years.

– It must be admitted that the expectations index clearly overestimated the weakness in consumer spending in recent quarters. But we would be surprised if the recent deterioration was a completely false signal, especially given the stagnation of real incomes and the extremely low savings rate – said Oliver Allen, senior economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, in January's data.

K.K

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