US stocks on Friday extended their rally and the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite indices scored their biggest weekly percentage gains since the US elections in early November last year, boosted by optimism over earnings, stimulus talks and progress on vaccine rollouts.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rose for a fifth straight session in their longest streak of gains since August last year, while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ posted record closing highs for a second day in a row.
A smaller-than-expected rebound in the US labor market last month highlighted the need for more government aid.
The US Department of Labor on Friday reported a 49,000 increase in non-farm payrolls last month, but job losses in manufacturing and construction.
US President Joe Biden and his Democratic allies in the US Congress moved ahead with their US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package as lawmakers approved a budget plan that would allow them to muscle Biden’s plan through in the coming weeks without Republican support.
“The upcoming package of stimulus is going to be big,” said Alan Lancz, president of Alan Lancz & Associates Inc, an investment advisory firm based in Toledo, Ohio.
“You have a situation where there’s a lot of cash on sidelines and bonds have really underperformed, so that’s helped some sectors that have really done poorly,” he said.
Upbeat earnings this week have also supported investor optimism. So far, stronger-than-expected corporate results in the fourth quarter have driven up analysts’ expectations, and S&P 500 companies are on track to post earnings growth for the period instead of a decline as initially expected.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday rose 92.38 points, or 0.3 percent, to 31,148.24, the S&P 500 gained 15.09 points, or 0.39 percent, at 3,886.83 and the NASDAQ Composite added 78.55 points, or 0.57 percent, at 13,856.30.
For the week, the S&P 500 gained 4.65 percent, the NASDAQ added 6.01 percent and the Dow increased 3.89 percent. The small-cap Russell 2000 index rose 7.7 percent for the week, its biggest weekly percentage gain since the week that ended on June 5 last year.
The CBOE Volatility index fell and had its biggest weekly point drop since the week that ended on Nov. 6 last year.
The S&P 500 technology index ended down 0.2 percent after hitting a record high earlier in the session.
Johnson & Johnson rose 1.5 percent after the drugmaker said it had asked US health regulators to authorize its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.
Shares of GameStop Corp, caught in a social media-hyped trading frenzy, rose 19.2 percent on Friday, after online broker Robinhood lifted all the buying curbs imposed at the height of the battle between amateur investors and Wall Street hedge funds.
Clover Health Investments Corp shares ended up 5.7 percent. It said it would cooperate with a request from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. US regulators are following up on a report about Clover by short-selling specialist Hindenburg Research.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 2.33-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ, a 1.94-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 34 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 286 new highs and four new lows.
Volume on US exchanges was 13.65 billion shares, compared with the 15.5 billion average for the full session over the past 20 trading days.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
Semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to double this year, as manufacturers in the industry are keen to expand production to meet strong global demand for artificial intelligence applications, according to SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain. Speaking at a news conference before the opening of Semicon Taiwan trade show tomorrow, SEMI director of industry research and statistics Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆) said semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to grow by an annual 100 percent this year, beating an earlier estimate of 70 percent growth. He said that Taiwan received a boost from a
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