Deep in the red for the first two months of this year, Wall Street enters March with frayed nerves in anticipation of more weak data as investors look for any signs of an end to the horrific economic slump.
With some indexes at 12-year lows, the market remains cautious about the economic outlook, despite reassuring comments in the past week from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke suggesting the worst crisis in decades could ease this year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 20 blue-chips slid 4.1 percent to end Friday at 7,062.93, its lowest level since 1997.
The broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 sank to its lowest close since December 1996, losing 4.5 percent to 735.09.
The technology-heavy NASDAQ composite fell 4.4 percent over the week to 1,377.84, near its lows from last November.
With a bear market in full force, the Dow has dropped 19.52 percent so far this year after a slide of more than 11 percent for last month. The S&P is off 18.62 percent in the year and the NASDAQ down 12.63 percent.
Al Goldman at Wachovia Securities acknowledged that he was wrong in suggesting the market had established a low point in November but still held out hope for a rebound soon.
“In hindsight, our timing may have been too optimistic; the bottoming out for the bear could start somewhat lower,” he said. “However, history shows that the economy and the stock market will recover.”
The market got a brief lift early in the week after Bernanke suggested the recession could end this year — but added that this was contingent on a series of rescues and stimulus efforts working as intended.
Investors had to cope with more grim economic news including a downward revision showing a stunning 6.2 percent annualized drop in fourth quarter economic activity, highlighting a deepening recession.
A government plan to boost its stake in troubled banking giant Citigroup to as much as 36 percent through a stock conversion also roiled the market and sparked further debate over whether the move was an effective nationalization.
Sal Guatieri at BMO Capital Markets said it was unclear whether this type of action, which could be extended to other banks, would revive them or simply keep them alive as “zombie” banks.
“An ongoing concern is that the toxic assets held by ‘zombie’ banks on government life-support could continue to bleed value from the illiquid assets held by still-healthy banks,” he said.
The coming week could bring more bad news, with last month’s auto sales expected to be weak and a payrolls survey expected to show further massive job losses — perhaps as many as 600,000, according to some analysts.
Yet some analysts say the stock market is “oversold,” having already discounted the worst economic scenario.
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