US stocks showed some renewed life over the past week as Wall Street traders licked their wounds and sought to gauge the extent of the US economic slowdown.
While some traders see a recession looming, others see a limited downturn and a recovery later this year, helped by a US$168 billion economic stimulus plan and an aggressive Federal Reserve, which may cut interest rates further.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a gain of 1.3 percent for the week to end at 12,348.21 on Friday ahead of the three-day Presidents Day weekend holiday.
The tech-dominated NASDAQ composite added 0.74 percent to 2,321.80 for the week and the broad market Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 1.4 percent to 1,349.99.
The main indexes remain sharply lower since the beginning of the year, with the broad market down more than 8 percent as traders eye difficult economic conditions ahead.
Global Insight economists Brian Bethune and Nigel Gault said in a research note that the economic reports in the past week "point towards acceleration in downward momentum in consumer spending and output."
"Those prospects, together with a cautionary testimony from Fed Chairman [Ben] Bernanke, and warnings about further write-offs in the financial sector, kept the equity markets on tenterhooks last week," they said.
Bank of America chief market strategist Joseph Quinlan said global markets including Wall Street remain down by nearly 15 percent or US$7.7 trillion from late October as a result of the fallout from the US real estate slide.
"Against this backdrop, any investor that has been buying US equities on the dips over the past few months has, in general, dug himself a deeper hole," he said. "In the end, the current financial crisis is one for the record books and one, more ominously, not over yet."
Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, said some strategists have already prepared for the darkest scenario, without looking ahead to a recovery in the US economy, helped by lower rates and tax breaks from a stimulus plan.
"Everything from lower short-term interest rates to fiscal stimulus will be working in favor of consumer spending by spring," she said.
"These are neither the best nor the worst of times. They are, however, the worst of times for this cycle and have clearly left their scars, regardless if the economy `officially' slips into recession or not. The first quarter has been particularly painful. The good news is that we are close to a new dawn and are all but assured a better second half," Swonk said.
Bonds fell over the week as investors edged a bit more into riskier equities. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond rose to 3.780 percent from 3.654 percent a week earlier, while that on the 30-year bond increased to 4.595 percent from 4.439 percent.
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