Generally strong earnings delivered solid gains of more than 2 percent for US markets in a holiday-shortened week, helped by the absence of bad news from Europe.
US investors focused on relatively positive domestic economic data and fourth quarter earnings reports, to mark the best weekly gains of the year so far.
“It’s been a strong week, pretty much based on the fact there wasn’t any bad news out of Europe,” said Mace Blicksilver of Marblehead Asset Management.
“The individual earning reports, by and large, were great reports, although Google was weaker. But still, IBM is much more representative of the economy than Google is.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Index of blue chips jumped a third straight day on Friday on the back of strong earnings from Microsoft, Intel and IBM, to drive the gain for the four-day week to 2.4 percent.
The S&P 500 added 2.0 percent while the NASDAQ, despite being pulled down on Friday by Google’s disappointing quarterly results, racked up a 2.8 percent jump for the week.
“US markets were more interested in domestic developments, particularly positive employment and manufacturing data and generally upbeat earnings results from S&P 500 companies — major banks notwithstanding,” said Paul Edelstein at IHS Global Insight.
“Double-dip recession fears are shrinking in the rear-view mirror as it becomes increasingly evident that the US recovery will endure, if not necessarily flourish.”
For the coming week attention will be split between the eurozone and a bucket-load of domestic US events, including the US Federal Reserve’s policy meeting, US President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday and GDP figures.
The president’s annual address to the US Congress is expected to touch heavily on the economy, which has been a key issue in this year’s US election campaign.
On Tuesday and Wednesday the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee will likely consider more stimulus for the US economy, via bond purchases.
On Friday the government will release its first estimate of fourth-quarter growth.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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