US stocks ended a turbulent week by plunging to six-year lows amid concerns over ailing financial institutions and their prospective nationalization.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a hefty 6.17 percent over the week to its lowest level since October 2002 at 7,365.67 on Friday, dogged by concerns that key banks such as Bank of America and Citigroup will be taken over by the government. The tech-rich NASDAQ composite fell 6.07 percent over the week to 1,441.23 and the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 tumbled 6.87 percent to 770.05.
The market continued to falter even after US President Barack Obama signed a bill for a nearly US$800 billion economic stimulus package and unveiled a multibillion dollar plan to contain a home mortgage crisis at the epicenter of global financial turmoil.
Investors zeroed in on the financial stocks amid concerns over bad assets troubling banks and rumors over their nationalization which the Obama administration moved to dispel.
“Financial stocks continue to represent the biggest concern for the broader market, and will continue to do so in the coming week,” Briefing.com said.
Uncertainty remain “regarding the depth and duration of the global recession and exacerbated fears that more pain and restructuring may lie ahead for the financial sector,” analysts at Charles Schwab & Co said in a report.
“It may take quite a bit more policy force to break the back of the recession” that has gripped the US for the past year, economists at IHS Global Insight wrote.
The US government is scheduled to release in the coming week a preliminary GDP projection for the fourth quarter of last year — the second update on economic activity for the quarter. Most economists surveyed expect that GDP in the quarter fell 5.4 percent, subsequent to receiving revisions to data after the first reading of negative 3.8 percent.
The GDP decline “is expected to be more severe than previously reported,” IHS Global Insight said.
Other fresh data to be released next week “will not do much to allay” concerns over the economy, it said. Among others, consumer confidence measures for this month as a whole are expected to sink and total new and existing home sales are expected to have declined last month, the market analysis firm said.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
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