US stocks closed slightly lower in extremely light trading on Thursday, as investors remained on the sidelines ahead of Christmas. The price of crude oil continued to recover.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 50.44 points, or 0.3 percent, to 17,552.17. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 3.30 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,060.99 and the NASDAQ composite rose 2.56 points, less than 0.1 percent, to 5,048.49.
Christmas Eve is almost always the quietest trading day of the year, and this year was no exception. Roughly 1.4 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, a third of what is typical and the lowest volume since Christmas Eve 2013.
US and European markets were closed on Friday in observance of Christmas.
While stocks were slightly lower on Thursday, US markets had a solid week. The S&P 500 rose nearly 3 percent and is back into positive territory for the year, albeit barely. It is not uncommon for stocks to rally into the end of the year, as investors close their books and reposition themselves for the next year.
“The Santa Claus rally got an early start,” said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist with Prudential Financial, referring to the gains that historically happen between Christmas and New Year’s Day. “If we can hold onto this, we will be setting up for a good January.”
Oil prices continued to recover from lows earlier in the week. US crude futures gained US$0.60 to close at US$38.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, rose US$0.53 to close at US$37.89 a barrel in London.
Energy stocks did not benefit from oil’s climb. The energy component of the S&P 500 index fell 0.9 percent, the most of the 10 industry sectors in the S&P 500 index.
In other company news, bond insurer MBIA rose US$0.51, or 8 percent, to US$6.75 after Puerto Rico’s struggling electric power company reached a deal with its creditors. MBIA insured the bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
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],”