US: Dow, S&P 500 finish at fresh records
BOTH the Dow and S&P 500 rocketed to fresh records on Wednesday behind gains in technology shares as markets monitored a major US hurricane and digested Federal Reserve minutes.
Major tech names such as Apple and Amazon won more than one per cent in a move analysts characterised as a “buy-the-dip” bounce after weakness in recent sessions.
Fed minutes showed a divided group of policy makers, belying a one-sided vote last month for a large interest rate cut.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.0 per cent to 42,512.00, topping a record from late September.
The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 0.7 per cent to 5,792.04, also a record, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.6 per cent to 18,291.62.
Florida residents fled - or defied warnings and tried to take shelter - on Wednesday in the final hours before Hurricane Milton, a lethal Category 4 storm, roars out of the ocean and tears across the state.
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Financial markets were looking ahead to Thursday’s consumer price index report, expected to influence future Fed actions.
An exception among tech stocks was Alphabet, which fell 1.6 per cent after the Department of Justice said on Tuesday it would demand that Google make profound changes to how it does business and even consider the possibility of a breakup, after the tech juggernaut was found to be running an illegal monopoly.
Boeing sank 3.4 per cent as the aerospace giant suspended negotiations with its striking workers in the Pacific Northwest after two days of talks with the machinist union yielded no breakthrough.
S&P put Boeing on credit watch negative on Tuesday, pointing to “strike-related financial risk.”
The action “reflects the increased likelihood of a downgrade if the strike persists toward the end of the year, further constraining the recovery in the company’s cash flow generation and the company does not raise capital sufficient to meet its upcoming needs in such a way that does not increase financial leverage,” S&P said. AFP
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