Tag: stock market

Stocks ended sharply higher on Friday after the February employment report showed a strong jobs number but muted wage gains, easing concerns about a flare-up in inflationary pressures. S&P 500 rose 48 points, or 1.7%, to 2,787. Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 441 points, or 1.8%, to 25,336. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 133 points, or 1.8%. For the week, the S&P 500 was up by 3.5%, the Dow up by 3.3%, and the Nasdaq up by 4.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq notched its first closing record since Jan. 26. All three benchmark indexes posted their best weekly performance in three weeks. The U.S economy added 313,000 jobs in February, the biggest gain since mid-2016, while average hourly earnings rose by 0.1%.

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President Donald Trump pardoned a Navy sailor who took photographs of the classified areas of a nuclear submarine, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Friday. Kristian Saucier pleaded guilty to taking photos of the USS Alexandria’s propulsion system while working in its engine room in 2009. Saucier has served a 12-month sentence and Sanders said Trump appreciated his service to the country.

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Oil prices rallied Friday to score a gain for the week, as the potential for a meeting between the U.S. president and North Korea’s leader helped to ease some geopolitical risk in the market. Data revealing the first weekly decline in seven weeks in the number of active U.S. oil rigs also contributed to the rise in prices. April WTI crude added $1.92, or 3.2%, to settle at $62.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose roughly 1.3% for the week.

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President Donald Trump wants to see “concrete steps and concrete actions” by North Korea before meeting leader Kim Jong Un, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Friday. Thursday, a senior South Korean official said the meeting could be held by May, but Sanders said a time and place “have not yet been determined.” The U.S. is pressing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

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Former drug-company executive Martin Shkreli on Friday was sentenced to 7 years in prison, according to media reports. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $75,000 in addition to the more than $7 million he previously had been ordered to forfeit. Shkreli was convicted in August of defrauding hedge-fund investors and earlier this week prosecutors had asked for a sentence of at least 15 years, saying he was unrepentant. Shkreli’s lawyers had asked for a sentence of less than two years. He first came to fame for buying the rights to a life-saving drug and then immediately raising the price to $750 a pill from $13.50.

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The S&P 500 index broke above its 50-day moving average in intraday trade on Friday, underlining an updraft for stocks that had sunk by 10% from a recent peak early last month. Most recently, the S&P 500 was up 38 points, or 1.4%, at 2,777, surging above its 50-day MA at 2,741.70, according to FactSet data. Market technicians pay attention to moving averages to help assess bullish and bearish momentum in an asset. The climb for the broad-market benchmark comes amid a better-than-expected jobs report for February, which helped to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average up by 372 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index to its first intraday record since slipping into correction territory, defined by many as a fall of at least 10% from a recent peak on Jan. 26. All three equity benchmarks have recovered considerably since that late-January low, with the Dow about 5% from its all-time high and the S&P 500 just about 3.4% from its record.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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From:: Stock Market News

The S&P 500 index broke above its 50-day moving average in intraday trade on Friday, underlining an updraft for stocks that had sunk by 10% from a recent peak early last month. Most recently, the S&P 500 was up 37 points, or 1.4%, at 2,775, surging above its 50-day MA at 2,741.70, according to FactSet data. Market technicians pay attention to moving averages to help assess bullish and bearish momentum in an asset. The climb for the broad-market benchmark comes amid a better-than-expected jobs report for February, which helped to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average up by more than 300 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index to its first intraday record since slipping into correction territory, defined by many as a fall of at least 10% from a recent peak on Jan. 26. All three equity benchmarks have recovered considerably since that late-January low, with the Dow about 5% from its all-time high and the S&P 500 just about 3.4% from its record.

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Any change in the Federal Reserve policy toolkit may be obvious to Ph.D.’s in economics but not to the public, and the shift will need to be planned carefully, said Chicago Fed President Charles Evans on Friday. In a speech to the Manhattan Institute Shadow Open Market Committee, Evans said that the proposals under consideration to combat the next downturn would require inflation to above 2%, perhaps for some time. In addition, the Fed must pay close attention to financial instability risks, he said. Even the existing policy of trying to achieve a 2% inflation target could be improved to make sure the public knows that is not a ceiling for inflation, the Chicago Fed president said.

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Baker Hughes on Friday reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil fell by four to 796 this week. The oil-rig count had climbed in each of the past six weeks. The total active U.S. rig count, which includes oil and natural-gas rigs, however, edged up by three to 984, according to Baker Hughes. April West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.65, or 2.7%, from Thursday, to $61.77 a barrel, up a bit from $61.73 shortly before the rig data.

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The market volatility seen over the past month is a “healthy realization” by investors that the risks are two-sided, said Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren on Friday. “Unsustainably strong growth that leads to excessive inflation or financial imbalances is not as much a risk as growth that falls short,” Rosengren said in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Springfield, MA. The Boston Fed president was upbeat about the outlook, saying the recent weak consumer spending was likely a temporary pause. Rosengren said he favors a pace of rate hikes “perhaps a bit faster” that the three, one-quarter point increases, that the Fed has forecast for this year.

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