Wall Street opened the year with gains this week despite a shaky jobs report, as traders looked ahead to the start of corporate earnings season for new signs of the US economy’s health.
The momentum and optimism of recent weeks continued on the trading floor throughout the week amid strong economic data, but Friday’s monthly jobs report provided a cold bath for investors.
Over the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.84 percent to close Friday at 11,674.76 points, for the sixth straight week of gains.
The tech-rich NASDAQ rose 1.9 percent to 2,703.17 points, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a broad measure of the market, added 1.1 percent at 1,271.50 points.
“Certainly November and December were disappointing with respect to job creation. If this trend continues, then concern for 2011 will grow, but I am not sure that anybody is yet willing to call into question their 2011 outlook,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.
While unemployment fell sharply to 9.4 percent last month — after rising to 9.8 percent the previous month — only 103,000 new jobs were created, well below the 150,000 forecast by analysts.
However, the disappointing unemployment data sparked only a moderate sell-off, highlighting investors’ confidence.
“I am a little surprised that the employment number this morning has not sparked more of a sell-off,” Wells Fargo Securities analyst Gina Martin said.
In company news, automakers saw their shares rise last week, after reporting strong sales for last year and a bright outlook.
GM shares were up 5.8 percent for the week and Ford shares were up 8.8 percent.
Banks also had a good week, with Bank of America shares up 6.8 percent, Citigroup up 4.4 percent and JPMorgan Chase up 2.9 percent.
The week ahead will see a fresh slew of economic indicators, including inflation and retail sales.
“We expect the next week’s data to have a positive tone,” analysts from Moody’s Analytics said.
On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve will release its Beige Book, which reviews the economic conditions in the US for last month and the beginning of this month, ahead of the meeting of the Fed’s top policy-making body.
Traders will also keenly await Friday’s retail sales figures, which analysts forecast will show a modest increase for last month — a peak shopping season — even after a number of key retailers this week posted disappointing sales.
Investors will also focus on quarterly earnings reports from firms led by chip maker Intel, aluminum giant Alcoa and JPMorgan.
“It is pretty well baked that we are going to have another solid quarter of growth in the next quarter,” Martin said, warning that “earnings could potentially cause a little skittishness if we don’t see the top line sales come through.”
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],”