Wall Street roared back to life over the past week with its best weekly performance of the year as investors shook off their jitters about the economic and corporate outlook.
In the week to Friday the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 3.27 percent to 10,471.91 and the Standard and Poor's 500 broad-market index climbed 3.05 percent to 1,189.28. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite, up for six consecutive days, chalked up a weekly gain of 3.52 percent to 2,046.42.
A key for Wall Street was a midweek report on consumer prices, which suggested that inflation was largely contained. While other economic indicators were mixed, the inflation report sparked hopes that the Federal Reserve was nearing the end of its cycle of interest rate hikes.
Dick Green at Briefing.com said the weakness in prior weeks was an overreaction but that he does not see a major rally developing.
"It has been a great week for the stock market. The economic and inflation outlooks suddenly look much better," he said.
"The recent market weakness was one of those fluctuations that investors have to learn to live through. It wasn't the start of a major down move any more than this week will prove the start of a major up move," Green said.
John Caldwell, investment strategist at McDonald Financial Group, said investors should be encouraged by the fact that the market traded up this week without a lot of economic news.
"Everybody sort of came to the realization that earnings were good; growth is going to be revised higher next week from a GDP standpoint; the inflation picture is still mixed and if it moves a little bit higher it's not as bad as they anticipated; and maybe the Fed keeps raising rates but now there's more talk that maybe they'll take a pause and that does seem to have put people in a buying mood," Caldwell said.
Linda Duessel at Federated Investments said the market can live with a slowing economy as long as inflation is in check. That was why the market responded to the report showing no change in "core" prices in April.
"The odds bet is for slower growth with no recession in the foreseeable future," she said.
"Particularly at this middle stage of the economic cycle, slower growth tends to be a good thing, helping to keep inflation under control. A red-hot economy could kindle high levels of inflation, forcing the Federal Reserve to accelerate the pace of interest rate hikes. Rapid rate hikes have often resulted in the Fed going overboard, holding down profits and leading to recession," Duessel said.
Duessel said that if the economy gets through the next Fed tightening phase without a recession, the market could kick into high gear.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last