Wall Street's major indexes closed down on the week on Friday, as investors braced themselves for fresh updates on inflation in the coming week.
In the week to Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4 percent to 11,088.03, while the technology-stacked NASDAQ market closed down 1.3 percent on the week at 2,057.71.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 shed 1.0 percent to 1,266.74 points.
Traders said the market closed lower on Friday, despite a strong 1.4 percent rebound in last month's retail sales, as investors fretted over US economic growth going forward and inflationary pressures, which have been stoked by rocketing fuel prices.
Updates on producer and consumer inflation are due for release in the coming week, on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.
"The direction now is leaning toward the downside based on the fact that the level of growth in the US economy is unclear and the direction of the market is uncertain," said Marc Prado, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.
"Next week we'll keep a close eye on energy and there's a lot of inflation data coming up. I don't think the Fed has done [yet] for the rates hikes," observed Art Hogan, an analyst at Jefferies and Co.
Wall Street economists are calling for headline producer price inflation (PPI) to rise 0.3 percent last month and expect "core" PPI to gain 0.2 percent, following respective gains of 0.5 and 0.2 percent in June.
Consumer price inflation (CPI) for last month meanwhile is anticipated to rise 0.4 percent following a 0.2 percent gain in June, while the "core" CPI is seen rising at a similar 0.3 percent pace as in June.
The "core" readings exclude volatile energy and food prices.
Any sharper-than-expected gains are likely to be attributed to soaring energy prices, if the numbers do not come in as expected, traders said.
Although oil prices dipped in the past week following the alleged plot to bomb US-bound airliners which British police claimed they had foiled, they closed up slightly higher Friday and remain near record highs.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month, closed up US$0.35 at US$74.35 a barrel.
And although the Federal Reserve suspended its long campaign of interest rate hikes in the past week, holding its fed funds rate steady at 5.25 percent, some analysts believe rising inflation will force the Fed to unleash fresh hikes.
"Data over the next few weeks should help decide this debate. If we are right, inflation data will remain strong and the FOMC [Fed] hawks will take to the airwaves," analysts at Lehman Brothers said in a note to investors.
"Resurgence in energy prices should bump up the headline reading for July's producer price index [PPI] by 0.6 percent, the largest increase since April's 0.9 percent rise," the analysts said.
Market participants said they will also be waiting for a fresh update on July housing starts in the coming week as evidence mounts that the housing market is cooling.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”