Wall Street heads into a key corporate earnings season with sentiment hammered amid a record surge in energy costs that has dampened prospects for an economic recovery.
In the holiday-shortened week to Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.51 percent to 11,288.54 ahead of the July 4 US Independence Day holiday. The blue-chip index was pounded last month with a 10.2 percent loss.
The tech-dominated NASDAQ lost 3.04 percent for the week to 2,245.38 while the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 index shed 1.21 percent to 1,262.90.
The Dow and NASDAQ are now firmly in “bear market” territory, down more than 20 percent from their highs from last October, with the S&P not far off.
While many analysts say the market is oversold due to poor sentiment, few see any catalysts that could spark a quick rebound.
The first test comes in the upcoming week with quarterly results from General Electric, seen as a barometer of the overall economy, and key manufacturers including Alcoa and chipmaker Intel.
Marc Pado, analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, said the market will be on edge from results later in the month from the banking sector, which has been whipsawed by the national housing meltdown and the related credit squeeze.
“Until we get those banks out of the way, the market isn’t going to pay too much attention to other companies’ earnings,” he said.
“It really needs to see where we stand with the credit crisis first and then they’ll focus on the industrials, the retailers, the technology firms.”
But even with positive corporate news, Pado said the leap in oil prices could prevent any rally from taking hold.
“When crude climbs and makes records every day, the market cannot focus on the economic news or anything else,” he said.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
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UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday vowed to investigate claims made in a YouTube video about China’s efforts to politically influence young Taiwanese and encourage them to apply for Chinese ID cards. The council’s comments follow Saturday’s release of a video by Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) and YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” on China’s “united front” tactics. It is the second video on the subject the pair have released this month. In the video, Chen visits the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park in Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province and the Strait Herald news platform in Xiamen, China. The Strait Herald — owned by newspaper
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