NST Online Business Times : latest

Posted: 18 Jan 2013 03:28 PM PST

NEW YORK: The Dow and S&P 500 closed at five-year highs on Friday as the market registered a third straight week of gains on a solid start to the quarterly earnings season.

Morgan Stanley was the latest Wall Street bank to report strong results. Its better-than-expected earnings followed similar report cards from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase earlier in the week.

Shares of Morgan Stanley shot up 7.9 percent to US$22.38. It reported a fourth-quarter profit after a year-earlier loss, helped by higher revenue at the bank's institutional securities business.

But Friday's rise was held back by shares of Intel Corp, which slumped 6.3 percent to US$21.25 a day after it forecast quarterly revenue below analysts' estimates and announced plans for increased capital spending amid slow demand for personal computers.

Another factor that has been weighing on the market before a three-day weekend is uncertainty about the federal debt limit and spending cuts that could hamper US growth. US markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 53.68 points, or 0.39 percent, at 13,649.70. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 5.04 points, or 0.34 percent, at 1,485.98. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.30 points, or 0.04 percent, at 3,134.71.

The Dow and S&P 500 ended at their highest levels since December 2007. For the week, the Dow ended up 1.2 percent, the S&P 500 ended up 0.9 percent and the Nasdaq ended up 0.3 percent. -- Reuters

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Jumaat, 18 Januari 2013

NST Online Business Times : latest

NST Online Business Times : latest

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