NST Online Business Times : latest
NST Online Business Times : latest |
| Posted: 09 Jul 2013 04:37 PM PDT NEW YORK CITY: US stocks Tuesday closed solidly higher for the fourth straight day as investors ignored the International Monetary Fund's lowered growth forecasts for the US and global economies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 75.65 (0.50 per cent) to 15,300.34. The broad-based S&P 500 added 11.86 (0.72 per cent) to 1,652.32, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 19.43 (0.56 per cent) to 3,504.26. The International Monetary Fund trimmed its world economic growth expectations for 2013 to 3.1 per cent from the April forecast of 3.3 per cent.
But some analysts said investors were cheered by slightly better-than-expected earnings from Dow component Alcoa, which kicked off the earnings season late Monday, and were increasingly comfortable with the prospect that the Federal Reserve will soon begin tapering its stimulus program "People have started to realise in the last week that even though the Fed may be tapering, the only way it is going to happen is if there is economic improvement, "said Michael James, managing director of equity trading and Wedbush Morgan Securities. Blue chips scored solid gains: Bank of America was up 1.9 per cent and Morgan Stanley added 2.3 per cent; Caterpillar gained 2.6 per cent). Networking giant Cisco gained 2.2 per cent. Package delivery firm FedEx rose 4.4 per cent amid speculation that Bill Ackman, head of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, had put his sights on the company. Apple rose 1.8 per cent after a US court dismissed a lawsuit with Amazon over use of the "app store" name after Apple decided to stop pursuing the case. Amazon increased 0.3 per cent. IBM shed 1.9 per cent after Goldman Sachs cut its rating to "neutral" from "buy," citing pressures on IBM's growth markets and higher-margin revenue streams, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Netflix surged 6.1 per cent after it announced an extension of a streaming content contract with CBS. CBS rose 0.9 per cent. Book retailer Barnes & Noble shot up 5.4 per cent after announcing that chief executive William Lynch would step down. The company's Nook tablet business has struggled in recent months. - AFP |
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