US stocks finished mostly higher on Friday after US President Donald Trump announced measures against China in response to new security legislation that were less threatening to the US economy than investors had feared.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session slightly lower, but all three indices rose for the week and registered a second straight month of gains.
The S&P 500 added 17.8 percent for last month and this month, its biggest two-month percentage gain since 2009.
The S&P 500 initially extended losses after Trump said he was directing his administration to begin the process of eliminating special treatment for Hong Kong in response to China’s plans to impose new security legislation in the semi-autonomous territory.
However, Trump made no mention of any action that could undermine the “phase one” trade deal that Washington and Beijing struck early this year, a concern that had cast a cloud over the market throughout the week.
“He began speaking in a very tough tone,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The market was worried he was going to announce something substantial, something detrimental to the US economy. Then, as he spoke, it became clear the actions being taken were not going to be as dramatic as originally feared.”
Trump also said the US is terminating its relationship with the WHO, something he had threatened to do earlier this month.
S&P 500 technology shares gave the index its biggest boost, while financials were the biggest drag.
The latest confrontation between the US and China has fueled concern that worsening tensions between the two world’s largest economies could derail the recent sharp gains in the stock market.
Expectations of a quick economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic have driven the S&P 500 up more than 30 percent from its March lows.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday fell 17.53 points, or 0.07 percent, to 25,383.11, the S&P 500 gained 14.58 points, or 0.48 percent, to 3,044.31, and the NASDAQ Composite added 120.88 points, or 1.29 percent, to 9,489.87.
For the week, the Dow and S&P 500 each rose more than 3 percent, and the NASDAQ gained 1.8 percent.
For the month, the Dow added 3.9 percent, the S&P 500 gained 4.5 percent and the NASDAQ rose 6.8%.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday said that New York City is “on track” to enter phase one of reopening on Monday next week and that five upstate regions would transition to phase two.
US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, speaking in a Webcast organized by Princeton University, reiterated the US central bank’s promise to use its tools to shore up the economy amid the pandemic.
Twitter Inc was down 2 percent and Facebook Inc shares slipped 0.2 percent, a day after Trump signed an order threatening social media firms with new regulations over free speech.
Upscale department store chain Nordstrom Inc slumped 11 percent after it reported a near 40 percent fall in quarterly sales due to pandemic-led store closures.
Salesforce.com Inc slipped 3.5 percent as the cloud-based business software maker cut its annual revenue and profit forecasts.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained