US stocks advance as investors await Fed’s comments
The S&P 500 advanced by 0.8% today as investors continued to trade with the Federal Reserve at the forefront of their every move. With the Fed’s board meeting tomorrow to discuss the continuation, or scaling back of their current $85bn a month bond purchasing program, they were always going to dominate the financial headlines for the week.
Additionally, the G8 today confirmed that it felt the global economy had seen the worst of the economic crisis and could now look to build on their successes and focus on further growth and increasing employment prospects in their respective regions.
James Dunigan, the chief investment officer at PNC Wealth Management, told Bloomberg this evening “Although things are improving, we have a long way to go, we’re ahead of ourselves with regard to the Fed acting anytime soon in reducing the support that it’s providing for the economy”.
Technology stocks lead the way in the US as Netflix advanced by 15.28 points, or 7.14%, on the news that they had struck a long term deal with Dreamworks for exclusive content as they hope to build on the success of House of Cards, a Netflix exclusive which has seen much critical acclaim. Netflix ended the session in New York at 229.23. SanDisk, renowned manufacturer of solid state storage devices such as the SD card found in most digital cameras advanced by 2.42 points, or 4.11%, closing at 61.23.
Energy companies also made solid advances as Range Resources and WPX Energy made advances of 5.45% and 3.84% respectively, leading their sector in percentage based gains for the day.
Planemaker’s Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp climbed 1.2% and 0.5% respectively. Boeing announced that they had received a new order for almost two dozen Boeing 787’s, the companies largest plane, from General Electric’s Capital Aviation Services. The deal is expected to be worth just under $3bn. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin Corp announced that they forecast production to increase by almost 300% by 2020. The manufacturer of the highly regarded F-35 fighter plane said it expected to increase production from 36 planes this year to “more than 100” by 2020, driving down costs and possibly pricing.
