Wall Street slipped on Friday, ending the week lower as tepid economic data weighed on banks and worries deepened over Nordstrom Inc and other department stores.
Risk-averse sentiment gripped Wall Street this week after US President Donald Trump unexpectedly fired his FBI chief, the potential fallout from which could delay Trump’s pro-growth goals to cut taxes and boost spending on infrastructure.
Soft retail sales and monthly inflation data on Friday raised concerns about slow economic growth and questions about whether the US Federal Reserve could maintain its hawkish outlook for interest rates this year.
Photo: Bloomberg
Federal funds futures implied a 49 percent chance of two more rate hikes this year, compared with 54 percent shortly before the release of the data, CME Group’s FedWatch tool showed.
Banks, which typically benefit from higher interest rates, dragged on the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. The S&P 500 financial sector fell 0.45 percent, while industrials were off 0.65 percent.
Department stores faced serious pressure for a second straight day after JC Penney Co reported lower-than-expected comparable-store sales, sending its shares down 13.99 percent.
Nordstrom dropped 10.84 percent after weak quarterly same-store sales.
Macy’s Inc fell 3.04 percent, bringing its loss to more than 19 percent in the past two sessions following its dismal quarterly report.
The less-than-expected 0.4 percent monthly increase in last month’s retail sales stirred fears about the retail sector as well as the US economy.
“The numbers were light again, people don’t seem to be spending money, despite employment and income numbers being good. It’s concerning,” San Francisco-based Wedbush Securities senior vice president Stephen Massocca said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.11 percent to end at 20,896.61 points and the S&P 500 lost 0.15 percent to 2,390.90.
The NASDAQ Composite added 0.09 percent to 6,121.23.
For the week, the Dow fell 0.5 percent, the S&P 500 lost 0.4 percent and the NASDAQ rose 0.3 percent.
With a better-than-expected first-quarter reporting season all but complete, S&P 500 companies on average are predicted by analysts to grow their second-quarter earnings by 8.3 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The S&P 500 is trading at 17.6 times expected earnings, higher than its 10-year average of 14.2.
General Electric Co was the top percentage loser on the Dow, down 2.08 percent after Deutsche Bank AG downgraded its shares from “hold” to “sell.”
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 1.32-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ, a 1.39-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 28 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 82 new highs and 70 new lows.
About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the daily average of 6.8 billion shares over the past 20 sessions.
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],”
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
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