US stocks rose this week, driving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its longest winning streak since February, amid optimism that Europe’s leaders will announce a plan to contain the debt crisis and after McDonald’s Corp joined companies beating profit estimates.
Financial shares in the S&P 500 added 3.9 percent as European finance ministers began negotiations to prevent a Greek default and shield banks. McDonald’s rose 2.7 percent, while Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc climbed more than 4.3 percent after their quarterly reports. PulteGroup Inc jumped 11 percent as data showed sentiment among homebuilders improved more than forecast. El Paso Corp soared 28 percent after Kinder Morgan Inc agreed to buy it.
The S&P 500 climbed 1.1 percent to 1,238.25, the highest since Aug. 3, and has risen three straight weeks. It has surged 13 percent since Oct. 3, when it closed within 1 percent of a bear market, or 20 percent plunge, from its high in April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose a fourth straight week, gaining 164.30 points, or 1.4 percent, to 11,808.79.
“We’ve had a combination of good economic news, better news out of Europe and third-quarter corporate earnings are coming along pretty well,” Philip Orlando, the New York-based chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors Inc, said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees about US$355 billion.
Equities rose on Friday as European finance ministers approved a 5.8 billion euro (US$8.05 billion) loan to Greece, and France retreated in a clash with Germany over expanding the bailout fund. Talks continue through Wednesday.
The S&P 500 also gained after 74 percent of companies that reported quarterly results topped the average analyst projection.
Financial stocks rallied the most out of 10 groups in the S&P 500 this week following gains in European lenders. Bank of America, which has dropped 52 percent this year for the worst performance in the Dow, jumped 4.4 percent to US$6.46.
Profit for S&P 500 companies climbed 16 percent in the third quarter and will rise 18 percent to a record US$99.25 for all of this year, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg show.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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