With shaky conviction, Wall Street investors are starting to come out from their shell in anticipation of global credit squeeze easing and a skirting of a major US economic downturn.
Over the week to Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.29 percent to 13,058.20. The blue-chip index has now clawed back most of its losses from a dismal start to the year and is down just 1.56 percent for the year.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 broad-market index advanced 1.15 percent on the week to 1,413.90, moving past a key resistance level of 1,400 and limiting its loss for the year to 3.7 percent.
The technology-laden NASDAQ composite rallied 2.23 percent for the week to 2,476.99.
In an action-packed week, investors learned that the US economy did not contract in the first quarter of this year, but expanded at a 0.6 percent pace, avoiding the kind of steep decline some had feared.
The US Federal Reserve meanwhile cut its base lending rate a quarter-point to 2 percent while giving what analysts said was a tentative signal it would not go lower barring a worsening economy.
Finally, data showed the US economy lost 20,000 jobs last month, significantly fewer than expected, in a sign that the labor market and overall economy may be holding up better than feared.
Linda Duessel at Federated Investors said a number of factors still are weighing on the stock market, including near-record energy costs and home prices that are falling at an alarming rate. Consumer confidence remains weak and inflation appears to be on the rise as well.
“For stocks to move up in earnest much from here, we probably will need a catalyst,” she said.
“One would be a lasting decline in oil prices sufficient to provide consumers with both the inclination and means to purchase discretionary items ... Tax rebates are another potential catalyst,” Duessel said.
Bonds held nearly steady in the past week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond dipped to 3.845 percent from 3.866 percent a week earlier and that on the 30-year bond eased to 4.565 percent from 4.589 percent.
Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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