Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index climbed 10 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,989. The Nasdaq composite increased two points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 4,651.
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NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks are moving higher Wednesday on some strong earnings reports and a rise in crude oil prices. Several energy companies are rebounding from big drops the day before. With “oil prices coming back strongly and the euro remaining weak, the European Central Bank may once again hold off fire”.
Expectations for further easing pressured the euro for a third day versus the dollar, with the single currency down 0.3 percent.
FLYING HIGH: Air Transport Services jumped $2.27, or 19 percent, to $14.04 after turning in solid results and saying it will operate an air transport network for Amazon.
Chipotle Mexican Grill fell $18.06, or 3 percent, to $506.63.
“These measures have more of an overall global effect and, yes, are positive in general for society and for markets, although they don*t affect people directly”, said Quero, 42, who works in an employee recruitment agency in Madrid. Chipotle has stepped marketing to win back customers and has said it’s instituting food safety procedures so such incidents don’t happen again.
Exports dived 25.4 percent from a year earlier on depressed demand in all of China’s major markets, while imports slumped 13.8 percent, the 16th straight month of decline. Brent crude, which is used to price global oils, rose 61 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to $40.26 a barrel.
“What is being overlooked is that in a very substantial part of Europe and particularly in our region, savers are risk adverse and capital markets are not very prominent, [which means that] lowering interest rates is not very helpful in stimulating economic growth”, he said.
Markets had initially roared their approval as the ECB cut its rates to fresh record lows and said it would start buying corporate debt for the first time and effectively begin paying banks to borrow from it to lend to companies and households.
Wednesday marked the seventh anniversary of the U.S. stock market’s financial crisis low point. The moves would come as the central bank continues to fight stubbornly low inflation rates in the $11 trillion eurozone economy. The hope is that will get banks to lend more. In the fourth quarter of 2015, quarterly eurozone GDP grew by 0.3 percent.
France’s CAC 40 rose 0.5% to 4,425.65, and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 1.1% to close at 18,208.92.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan nudged up 0.1 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei climbed 1 per cent and Australian shares added 0.2 per cent. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against the euro, yen and four other currencies, dipped 0.1 percent.
Alasdair Cavalla at the Centre for Economics and Business Research in London suggested that the latest European Central Bank steps were comparable to the last stage of U.S. Federal Reserve’s stimulus efforts that promised open-ended stimulus until unemployment fell.
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The benchmark 10-year note was last down 7/32 in price to yield 1.856 percent, up from 1.834 percent late on Tuesday. Sweden and Switzerland also have negative rates, in an attempt to keep money seeking higher returns from surging in from the euro countries and driving up their currencies’ exchange rates.
