A flare-up in tensions in Ukraine on Friday threatened to derail the climb made by US stock markets this week, but traders ultimately dismissed geopolitical concerns to deliver another week of gains on Wall Street.
The prospects of fresh US and European involvement in Iraq’s civil conflict, coupled with Ukraine’s claim that it destroyed Russian armored vehicles inside its territory late on Thursday, failed to dampen buying. Nor did dismal second-quarter growth reports from Japan and the eurozone that underscored the global economy’s continued struggle.
Stocks finished a volatile Friday session mixed, but the week’s gains were solid. The S&P 500 rose 1.2 percent to close on 1,955.06, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.8 percent to 16,662.91 and the NASDAQ Composite outperformed both indices with a gain of 2.2 percent to end at 4,464.93.
The end of a modestly good second-quarter earnings season helped spur gains. Biotech and chipmakers led the climbs higher for the week, while industrials generally did well.
Also keeping investors focused on equities was the continued flow of data showing little inflationary pressure that would force the US Federal Reserve to push up interest rates earlier than expected — the second half of next year.
The stronger US economy has brought out more calls from inflation hawks for Fed Chair Janet Yellen to speed up the timetable, but the most recent data showing prices are still well in check and consumer spending flat suggest that the US central bank has much more time to continue supporting the economy with its ultra-low benchmark rate.
Friday’s data showed a slowdown in the producer price index to a 1.7 percent annual pace.
Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc poor second quarter and diminished outlook has analysts glued to August-September back-to-school sales data to understand if that was a blip or will remain an ongoing challenge to growth.
The week saw Berkshire Hathaway set a new landmark for US markets: The Warren Buffett investment house’s A shares passed US$200,000 for the first time, more than 100 times the value of the second highest-priced shares. It took less than eight years to double from US$100,000 — with the 2008 market crash in between.
The coming week will be light on economic data and focus on the state of the housing market.
Investors will be looking to what is said on the Fed’s annual economic policy symposium from Thursday to Saturday next week.
There, Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi are expected to update their views on the state of growth and monetary policy trajectory.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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