US stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its worst weekly loss in two months, as Spanish, French and Italian bond yields rose and Fitch Ratings said Europe’s debt crisis poses a threat to US banks.
Alcoa Inc, Chevron Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co lost at least 8 percent to lead declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Sears Holdings Corp fell 14 percent and Abercrombie & Fitch Co dropped 17 percent after the retailers’ quarterly results trailed forecasts. Marathon Petroleum Corp and HollyFrontier Corp plunged more than 13 percent on speculation refining profits will decline.
The S&P 500 decreased 3.8 percent, the most since the week ended Sept. 23, to 1,215.65. The index closed at the lowest level since Oct. 20. The Dow fell 357.52 points, or 2.9 percent, to 11,796.16.
“In the eurozone you’ve got this horrible crisis and it’s not clear to anyone how it is going to be solved,” George Feiger, chief executive officer of Contango Capital Advisors Inc, the San Francisco-based wealth management arm of Zions Bancorporation, which oversees about US$3.3 billion, said in a telephone interview.
“The most important thing from an American perspective is that they not let the banking system implode, and even that is not guaranteed,” he said.
Equities slumped this week as higher government bond yields in Spain, France and Italy spurred concern the European debt crisis is intensifying outside Greece. The S&P Financials Index slumped 5.6 percent this week, the biggest drop among 10 industries, after the Fitch report spurred speculation that the European crisis poses a threat to earnings.
The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index lost 4.5 percent as 28 of its 30 stocks retreated. The Dow Jones Transportation Average slumped 2.8 percent. Both fell the most in a week since September.
Banks dropped after Fitch said they face a “serious risk” that their creditworthiness will deteriorate if Europe’s debt crisis worsens. Morgan Stanley slipped 13 percent to US$14.21. JPMorgan dropped 8 percent to US$30.62. Citigroup Inc slid 10 percent to US$26.28.
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
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
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
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