Posted on 01/03/2018 9:24:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
U.S. stocks kicked off 2018 on a strong note on Tuesday, and world markets rose to new highs on Wednesday as early indications suggested it would be another year of synchronized global growth led by a robust European economy.
"If you look at the S&P 500 and what makes up the sectors, technology has the largest international exposure. When you look at driving futures sales, it has to come from growing economies," said Jeff Powell, managing partner of Polaris Wealth Advisors.
But gains in the technology sector were capped by a 2.43 percent drop in Intel (INTC.O) following a report that its processor chips had a fundamental design flaw. The stock was the biggest drag on all the three major indexes.
Rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) gained 6.5 percent. Nvidia (NVDA.O) and Micron (MU.O) were up 5.2 percent and 3 percent.
A report showed U.S. factory activity increased more than expected in December, boosted by a surge in new orders growth, in a further sign of strong economic momentum at the end of 2017.
The Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity jumped to 59.7 in December from 58.2 in November.
The report comes ahead of the scheduled release by the Federal Open Market Committee of minutes of its December meeting.
Investors are likely to scan the release for hints on rate tightening action in the coming months and the impact of the U.S. tax overhaul on the economy and inflation.
The odds of a March rate hike jumped to 61.9 percent after the report from 56.3 percent before, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Best. Election. Ever.
I am so pleased with the election results that when I got a solicitation from the Trump/Pence campaign asking for a one dollar donation, I sent in fifty. This is the first time I have donated in an off-election year since Reagan. The donation form asked if I wanted to make the same amount of donation every month. I said no.
A little later I got a solicitation from what turned out to be the RNC. I donated, was asked to make it monthly again, and declined. Then I realized it was from the RNC, to whom I don’t care to donate, and went to something called revv which sort of handles your donations account. I was going to cancel the donation. As I dug around to find out how to do that, I discovered both the T/P donation and the RNC donation had been flagged as being monthly recurring donations. I promptly unflagged that.
Beware to scheming solicitors.
Even some of my friends who are hard core Clinton supporters are starting to see the light.
One said he likes what Trump is doing with the economy.
I was shocked
NVIDIA stock I own is up $17 since Tuesday.
Democrats hate that tax cut as small as it was.
They will try to get the republicans to spend spend spend to offset. Not that they need encouragement.
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