Jumaat, 1 Februari 2013

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Dow tops 14,000 for 1st time since 2007

Posted: 01 Feb 2013 04:22 PM PST

NEW YORK: US stocks rallied sharply Friday, with the Dow industrials closing above 14,000 for the first time since October 2007 following a positive US jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 14,009.79, up 149.21 points (1.08 per cent).

The broad-based S&P 500 finished at 1,513.17, up 15.06 (1.01 per cent), while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 36.97 points (1.18 per cent) to 3,179.10.

The Dow's breakthrough of the psychological 14,000 barrier followed a January US monthly jobs report that catalysed markets.

The report showed employers added 157,000 jobs in January, fewer than expected, and the jobless rate inched up to 7.9 per cent.

But revised data for all of 2012 heartened markets, with net job growth at an average of 181,000 a month, up from a prior estimate of 153,000.

The all-time Dow closing high was 14,164.53 on October 9, 2007.

The revisions to the 2012 jobs data "highlight even more how remarkably resilient the US labour market has been over the last two quarters," said Harm Bandholz of UniCredit.

The rally also came on the heels of corporate earnings reports that for the most part have either met or exceeded expectations.

All but two of the Dow's 30 blue-chip stocks rose: pharmaceutical giant Merck and computer maker Hewlett-Packard.

Among the Dow's biggest gainers were Bank of America (up 3.5 per cent), United Technologies (up 2.6 per cent), as well as telecoms AT&T (up 2.1 per cent) and Verizon Communications (up 2.2 per cent).

Oil company Chevron gained 1.2 per cent on encouraging earnings and a modest rise in year-over-year output.

ExxonMobil edged up 0.1 per cent. Despite reporting its best annual profits since 2008, fourth-quarter output fell below the year-ago level.

Merck fell 3.3 per cent after pushing back the time-frame for seeking approval for a much-anticipated osteoporosis drug.

Hewlett-Packard slipped 0.3 per cent after announcing it was closing a 1,100-employee site in Germany.

Anheuser-Busch InBev picked up 4.2 per cent one day after the Department of Justice sued to block the company's takeover of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo.

Computer company Dell jumped 3 per cent amid talk that its plan to take itself private could be announced next week.

Pfizer's animal-health unit Zoetis soared 19.27 per cent to US$31.01 in its market debut, the biggest since Facebook's May 2012 initial public offering. The Zoetis IPO raised US$2.24 billion. -- AFP

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Deadly explosion at US Embassy in Turkey - CBS News

Posted: 01 Feb 2013 09:23 AM PST

Updated at 12:04 p.m. Eastern

ANKARA, Turkey A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at an entrance to the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital on Friday, killing himself and one other person, officials said.

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Deadly explosion at U.S. Embassy in Turkey

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Suicide bomber hits U.S. Embassy in Turkey

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardione told reporters that a guard at the gate was killed in the 1:15 p.m. blast, and a Turkish citizen was wounded. Reuters quoted Ricciardione as saying the slain guard was a Turkish national. U.S. Embassies are usually guarded by a combination of local security personnel and American diplomatic security forces.

The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the security checkpoint at the side entrance of the embassy, but did not do damage inside the embassy itself. Footage showed that the door had been blown off its hinges and debris littered the ground and across the road. An Associated Press journalist saw a body in the street in front of an embassy side entrance.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed that it had been a suicide attack. White House spokesman Jay Carney called the attack "an act of terror."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Interior Minister Muammer Guler told reporters "preliminary information" obtained by police indicated that the bomber was likely connected to a domestic left-wing militant group. He did not elaborate.

A police official, meanwhile, told The Associated Press that the bomber is most likely a suspected member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the press.

The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States but had been relatively quiet in recent years.

A source familiar with security at the embassy in Turkey told CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan that, in their view, the security measures taken at the compound seemed to have worked, in that the attacker was unable to gain access to the main embassy building.

The source said the U.S. Embassy in Ankara is considered a high-security post, and there are Turkish police present at all times. All gates leading into the compound are manned by armed Turkish security guards, according to the source.

Police swarmed the area and several ambulances were dispatched. An AP journalist saw one woman who appeared to be seriously injured being carried into an ambulance.

The embassy building is heavily protected. It is near an area where several other embassies are located, including that of Germany and France. Police sealed off the area and journalists were being kept away.

Homegrown Islamic militants tied to al Qaeda have carried out suicide bombings in Istanbul, killing 58, in 2003. The targets were the British consulate, a British bank and two synagogues.

In 2008, an attack blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.

In the November 2003 attack on the British consulate, a suspected Islamic militant rammed an explosive-laden pickup truck into the main gate, killing British Consul-General, Roger Short, and his assistant, Lisa Hallworth.

CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former deputy director in the National Intelligence Director's office, noted on "CBS This Morning" the possibility of a connection to the recent Israeli airstrike in Syria, for which Damascus and its staunch ally Iran vowed to retaliate.

Iran, Miller says, has extensive intelligence operations in Turkey, and its Islamic militant group ally, Hezbollah, also has significant assets there.

"Iran, in terms of retribution, would stack Israel and the U.S. together," says Miller.

Turkey has become a harsh critic of the regime in Syria, where a vicious civil war has left at least 60,000 people dead. The first of six Patriot missile batteries being deployed to Turkey to protect against attack from Syria was declared operational and placed under NATO command on Saturday and others were expected to be operational in the coming days.

January Jobs Report: Unemployment Rate Up to 7.9 Percent, 157000 Jobs ... - ABC News

Posted: 01 Feb 2013 09:01 AM PST

The U.S. economy added 157,000 jobs in January as the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department.

"This jobs figure today indicates that the engine of the economy is revving, but the car isn't going anywhere," said Tom di Galoma, managing director at financial services firm Navigate Advisors LLC.

Employment numbers for November were revised higher to 247,000 from 161,000. For December, they were also revised higher to 196,000 from 155,000.

"The uncertainty will be around what happens with government jobs, because the uncertain impact of the fiscal cliff in December may have led to some layoffs in January," said Kevin Dunning, global economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Although the fiscal cliff was ultimately resolved Jan. 1, Dunning said he expected layoffs for federal government workers.

Still, Dunning said hiring had "been quite resilient despite all the fiscal uncertainty."

Both state and local governments cut 9,000 jobs in January, while the private sector created 166,000 jobs for the month.

Dunning said the "strong" jobs growth in the fourth quarter of last year was at odds with the mild contraction in GDP announced Wednesday.

"This suggests that fourth-quarter GDP growth may yet be revised upwards," he said.

The Commerce Department announced Wednesday that U.S. GDP decreased by an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the last three months of 2012, the first time the economy has contracted since the second quarter of 2009.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report, for the week ending Jan. 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 368,000, an increase of 38,000 from the previous week's unrevised figure of 330,000. The four-week moving average was 352,000, an increase of 250 from the previous week's unrevised average of 351,750.

Stephen Bronars, a senior economist with Welch Consulting in Washington D.C., cautions people not to "overreact" to January's jobs report.

"Careful observers examine the size of the seasonal adjustment. January is a very difficult month for the BLS to forecast," he said.

Typically, payroll falls by 2.8 million between December and January because of seasonal workers' leaving jobs after the holidays, he said. But a report released Thursday by payroll provider ADP noted that private-sector employment increased by 192,000 for January 2013, on a seasonally adjusted basis.

This report, which does not include government or public jobs data, noted that goods-producing employment increased by 15,000 jobs in January, primarily fueled by a 15,000 increase in construction jobs. Manufacturing jobs, however, were down by 3,000.

Service jobs, including restaurant workers, health care workers, housekeepers, teachers and retail sales positions, increased by 177,000, with professional/business services adding 40,000 jobs for the month, the ADP report said. Trade/transportation/utilities added 33,000 jobs, and financial services added 12,000 jobs.

Businesses with 49 or fewer employees added 115,000 jobs in January, according to the ADP report. Employment levels among medium-size companies, that is, those with 50 to 499 employees, rose by 79,000, while employment at companies with 500 or more employees fell by 2,000.

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Jumaat, 1 Februari 2013