With shaky conviction, Wall Street investors are starting to come out from their shell in anticipation of global credit squeeze easing and a skirting of a major US economic downturn.
Over the week to Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.29 percent to 13,058.20. The blue-chip index has now clawed back most of its losses from a dismal start to the year and is down just 1.56 percent for the year.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 broad-market index advanced 1.15 percent on the week to 1,413.90, moving past a key resistance level of 1,400 and limiting its loss for the year to 3.7 percent.
The technology-laden NASDAQ composite rallied 2.23 percent for the week to 2,476.99.
In an action-packed week, investors learned that the US economy did not contract in the first quarter of this year, but expanded at a 0.6 percent pace, avoiding the kind of steep decline some had feared.
The US Federal Reserve meanwhile cut its base lending rate a quarter-point to 2 percent while giving what analysts said was a tentative signal it would not go lower barring a worsening economy.
Finally, data showed the US economy lost 20,000 jobs last month, significantly fewer than expected, in a sign that the labor market and overall economy may be holding up better than feared.
Linda Duessel at Federated Investors said a number of factors still are weighing on the stock market, including near-record energy costs and home prices that are falling at an alarming rate. Consumer confidence remains weak and inflation appears to be on the rise as well.
“For stocks to move up in earnest much from here, we probably will need a catalyst,” she said.
“One would be a lasting decline in oil prices sufficient to provide consumers with both the inclination and means to purchase discretionary items ... Tax rebates are another potential catalyst,” Duessel said.
Bonds held nearly steady in the past week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond dipped to 3.845 percent from 3.866 percent a week earlier and that on the 30-year bond eased to 4.565 percent from 4.589 percent.
Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
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