World stocks on Tuesday closed out a notably profitable year, with Wall Street recording its best annual performances since 2013, boosted by hopes for a US-China trade deal.
New York rallied into the close, turning positive for the day and leaving the broad-based S&P 500 and tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite up 29 percent and 35 percent respectively for last year, the best showings in six years.
Key European markets showed increases of 25 percent or more for last year, partly thanks to late surges on receding recession fears and easing China-US trade tensions.
However, Brexit-hit London trailed its peers with a 12 percent annual rise, less than half the percentage increase managed by Paris, Frankfurt and Milan.
Earlier on Tuesday as US markets were about to open, US President Donald Trump tweeted that a partial trade deal with China would be signed in Washington on Jan. 15, ending some of the uncertainty about efforts to cement the deal announced early last month.
Prudential Financial Inc market strategist Quincy Krosby told reporters that the US-China detente could help decide the direction of the global economy next year.
“Much of the enthusiasm in the market is based on the idea that global growth is going to begin to accelerate, albeit slowly,” she said. “The question will be: Do we actually see positive growth, especially in China?”
Demand in China is crucial to chances for growth in global trade, while a China trade agreement could see US corporations begin investing again after a year when corporate capital spending stagnated worryingly, Krosby said.
Asian stock markets closed mainly lower on Tuesday, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index ending a half-day of trading almost 0.5 percent down, although it rallied more than 7 percent last month. Tokyo was shut for a public holiday.
“While market volumes are predictably light, investors continue to strike a year-end cautionary tone as December optimism is gradually giving way to 2020’s uncertainty,” AxiTrader Ltd chief Asia market strategist Stephen Innes said in a client note.
Asian investors were also watching for significant policy announcements early in the New Year.
In a New Year’s speech yesterday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un struck a decisively militaristic tone, warning of a new strategic weapon and “shocking” action.
Analysts said all eyes were on nuclear-armed Pyongyang’s threat of a “new way” after its end-of-year deadline for sanctions relief from the US expired.
An address by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would be followed closely.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, oil prices slid, despite reports that Iran had seized a vessel suspected of smuggling fuel near the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for one-third of the world’s seaborne oil.
Over the year, the price of Brent North Sea crude jumped by almost one-quarter and the New York benchmark contract West Texas Intermediate soared more than one-third in value, helped by tighter supply.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
RSS