US stocks managed to hold steady in a week that saw the US financial markets shuttered entirely for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks due to the devastating superstorm Sandy.
However, traders were also on edge for the coming presidential election on Tuesday, with the race between US President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney — who promises a different future for the finance industry — too close to call.
The first weather-forced two-day closure on Wall Street since the Great Blizzard of 1888 came as Sandy flooded the lower reaches of Manhattan, halted east coast transportation and left millions powerless, including some of the world’s most powerful banks, investment managers and brokerages.
Trade came back up on Wall Street on Wednesday, but many traders were still hobbled by the power shortages and telecommunications problems.
With quarterly results still coming in largely showing slowing gains, the S&P 500 ended the week up a bare 0.2 percent from the previous Friday, at 1,414.20.
The narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 blue chips was down 0.1 percent at 13,093.16, and the NASDAQ Composite gave up 0.2 percent to 2,982.13.
The heavy effects of Sandy — with total losses estimated to hit US$50 billion and insured losses that could reach US$20 billion — offset the impact of a positive jobs report for last month released on Friday.
While the jobless rate ticked upward slightly to 7.9 percent, the number of new jobs created jumped to 171,000, sustaining a moderate pace.
The numbers gave an initial upward push to the market, but it fell back into negative territory.
Some took that to raise the question of whether the US Federal Reserve could cut short its ultra-low rate policy sooner than expected, a bearish sign for stocks.
“As welcome as these numbers are, they aren’t strong enough to deter the Fed from expanding QE3 [third round of quantitative easing] next year to offset the expiration of Operation Twist,” Nigel Gault and Paul Edelstein of IHS Global Insight said.
At any rate, the election loomed over everything, another reason stocks moved sideways.
“Perhaps markets are wary of being fooled by distorted year-end jobs numbers again ... Or perhaps markets are holding their breath ahead of the elections like everyone else,” the IHS Global Insight economists said.
“Either outcome could provide a ‘certainty’ dividend for markets looking for clarity, though a Romney win might be cheered more forcefully,” they said.
Post-election will bring the fiscal cliff battle, with the Democrats and Republicans fighting over how to right the budget deficit without forcing the country into recession, a distinct possibility if they fail to reach a compromise before Dec. 31.
At the same time, it opens the holiday shopping season, which can be boon or bust for many retailers and their share prices. Forecasts are for healthy growth, but not better than last year’s.
“It is that time of year again, as consumers gear up to head to the stores for the holiday shopping season,” Wells Fargo Securities said.
“We estimate holiday retail sales will post a modest rise of 3.8 percent year over year, an increase in sales, but off last year’s 5.7 percent growth pace,” it said.
“Several factors that will likely hold back consumer spending this year, along with slow personal income growth, include increased economic uncertainty and the impending fiscal cliff of government budget cuts and tax increases slated to go into effect in January,” it said.
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