Wall Street gained modestly on Friday as a tepid US jobs report kept expectations muted for another interest rate hike this year, while investors launched into a typically dour month for stocks on a positive note.
US job growth slowed more than expected last month after two straight months of hefty increases.
The US Department of Labor on Friday said that non-farm payrolls increased by 156,000 last month, while economists had forecast an increase of 180,000.
Following the data, traders were betting on a 39 percent chance that the US Federal Reserve would raise rates at its December meeting, similar to bets earlier in the week, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
“The latest economic data that came out today ... didn’t provide information to the Fed that they need to go out and raise interest rates,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.
“The data kind of continued to show this Goldilocks-type situation, which the market tends to like,” Carlson said. “It’s not too hot, it’s not too cold.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 39.46 points, or 0.18 percent, to end at 21,987.56, the S&P 500 gained 4.9 points, or 0.20 percent, to 2,476.55 and the NASDAQ Composite added 6.67 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,435.33.
For the week, the Dow Jones rose 0.8 percent, the S&P added 1.4 percent and the NASDAQ Composite gained 2.7 percent.
Market watchers were also digesting other economic data.
US construction spending unexpectedly fell in July, hitting a nine-month low, but the Institute for Supply Management said its index for factory activity soared to 58.8 last month, the highest reading since April 2011.
“The markets are up, I think, because the economic data that has been released is still supportive of economic growth, still supportive of earnings growth, which ultimately is going to drive stock prices,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management LLC in Chicago.
Energy and materials led among major stock sectors while utilities lagged the most.
The S&P 500 hovered near all-time highs as major stock indexes marked gains for a second straight week.
The NASDAQ tallied a record closing high after minting its best week of the year.
The benchmark S&P had posted a 0.06 percent gain last month, its most sluggish monthly performance since March’s slight decline.
September ranks as the worst month for stocks, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.
Shares of major automakers climbed after the companies reported better-than-expected sales for last month and issued optimistic outlooks as Houston area residents replace cars and trucks after Hurricane Harvey.
General Motors Co rose 2.2 percent and Ford Motor Co gained 2.9 percent.
Lululemon Athletica Inc shares rose 7.2 percent after the yoga and leisure apparel maker reported profit and revenue that topped expectations.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 2.30-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ, a 1.92-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
About 5.1 billion shares changed hands in US exchanges on Friday, below the 5.8 billion daily average over the past 20 sessions.
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],”