US stocks ended a volatile week on the upside on Friday, with investors worrying about the global recovery and facing a new batch of housing and inflation data on the world’s largest economy.
“Financial markets continued to thrash around ... as investors remained generally risk-averse and indecisive about how the future would unfold,” US economists at IHS Global Insight said in a note to clients.
“These fears were exacerbated by the usual pundits proclaiming that the economic Armageddon that they had predicted for 2009, while delayed, would indeed finally explode onto the scene in the second half of 2010,” economists Nigel Gault and Brian Bethune said.
Over the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.51 percent to 10,211.07 points. The blue-chip index seesawed between losses and gains through Thursday, finally closing higher for a second day running on Friday.
The tech-rich NASDAQ rose 1.10 percent from the previous Friday to 2,243.60 points.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a broad measure of the markets, advanced 2.51 percent over the week to 1,091.60 points.
“It is pretty simple why the market got an uptick percent this week — because the week was relatively absent of any macroshocks coming from the eurozone,” Craig Peckham at Jefferies said.
Market sentiment improved slightly on the eurozone, where Greece’s debt crisis has exposed the troubled finances of other members of the currency-sharing bloc and sent the euro tumbling against the US dollar.
The BP oil-spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster in US history, was expected to loom large again over the markets.
The British oil giant’s share price has plunged by as much as 49 percent, wiping tens of billions of dollars off its market value, since the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22 after a deadly explosion two days earlier.
The oil well continues to spew massive amounts of crude into the Gulf that have defied attempts at firm estimates.
The disaster has hammered other energy shares and raised speculation about BP’s long-term viability.
The markets likely will keep a close eye on the political ramifications of the crisis as US President Barack Obama’s administration and Congress hold meetings with BP leaders. The round began yesterday with Obama holding talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron by phone about the oil spill.
The White House summoned BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to a meeting with Obama in Washington on Wednesday.
Investors will have a full calendar of economic data to scan in search of the direction of the world’s largest economy.
Wednesday will be charged, with reports due on last month’s housing starts and building permits, wholesale inflation and industrial production.
On Thursday, weekly initial jobless claims will provide a snapshot on the troubled labor market, where the unemployment rate stands at 9.7 percent.
Consumer prices data on the same day will round out the inflation picture, while the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators may shed some light on the recovery outlook.
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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