The S&P 500 ended higher on Friday as investors weighed the prospect of more fiscal stimulus against fears of further business disruptions due to a record rise in COVID-19 cases in the US.
Netflix Inc tumbled 6.5 percent after the video streaming service forecast slower-than-expected subscriber growth during the third quarter, pulling the communication services sector down 0.4 percent.
The S&P 500 utilities, real-estate and healthcare indices were the session’s strongest gainers.
However, a 1.5 percent drop in Goldman Sachs Group Inc helped keep the Dow Jones Industrial Average in negative territory.
For the week, the S&P 500 and the Dow rose 1.25 percent and 2.29 percent respectively, after optimism over an eventual novel coronavirus vaccine and hopes of a post-pandemic economic recovery helped investors look past a continuous surge in COVID-19 cases.
Cases on Friday rose by at least 70,674, after climbing by a record 77,499 on Thursday.
The NASDAQ ended 1.08 percent lower for the week as investors sold shares of high-flying companies including Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc and moved into cyclical sectors.
Next week, the second-quarter earnings season shifts into high gear with reports expected from corporate heavyweights including Microsoft, Tesla Inc, Intel Corp and Verizon Communications Inc.
With this year largely written off as a disaster for US corporations because of the virus, investors are looking for information from companies about the potential size and timing of an eventual recovery.
“The question is what 2021 and 2022 look like, and what can folks glean from the commentary, especially when companies have withdrawn their guidance and made it difficult to get a sense of what their prospects look like,” said Tom Hainlin, a national investment strategist at US Bank Wealth Management.
The Cboe Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” ended at 25.68, its lowest closing level since June 5.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.23 percent to end at 26,671.95 points, while the S&P 500 gained 0.28 percent to 3,224.73. The NASDAQ Composite climbed 0.28 percent to 10,503.19.
Unprecedented stimulus measures and improving economic data have helped the S&P 500 rise to within about 5 percent of its February record high.
Investors are also hoping for more fiscal support, as a program that offers additional unemployment benefits is set to expire on July 31. The US Congress is to return to Washington on Monday to debate another coronavirus aid bill.
“Both Republicans and Democrats have a strong incentive to agree upon further pre-election stimulus. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ a stimulus passes, it’s just what the size and content of that package looks like,” UBS Private Wealth Management senior vice president Andrea Bevis said.
BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, rose 3.7 percent after reporting a jump in quarterly profit as investors poured money into its fixed-income funds and cash management services.
Volume on US exchanges was 9.5 billion shares, compared with the 11.6 billion average for the full session over the past 20 trading days.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.43-to-1 ratio; on the NASDAQ, a 1.50-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 39 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 89 new highs and 11 new lows.
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
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day