NST Online Business Times : latest
NST Online Business Times : latest |
| 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. 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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