In addition to George, two close Yellen allies – William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, and Stanley Fischer, the Fed’s vice chairman – have suggested in the past week that a strengthening economy will soon warrant a resumption of the rate hikes the Fed began in December. Then investors began to have second thoughts, wondering if an increase was possible as early as next month, and buyers turned to sellers.
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However, with all the Fed commentary, markets paid little attention to the slightly weaker final numbers for U.S. 2Q GDP.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gave up 9.05 points or 0.12% to close Friday at 7,845.49. The Nasdaq composite dipped 3 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 5,209.
A solid USA labor market “has strengthened” the case for the first rate increase since last December, Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen told a central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“She’s just kept the door open for a hike sooner rather than later”, said Subadra Rajappa, an interest rate strategist at Societe Generale SA in Washington.
Stocks climbed as investors perceived her comments as “dovish”, meaning a continuation of the easy money policies.
With few catalysts to drive business this week, Yellen’s talk at the annual Jackson Hole symposium of global central bankers has hung over exchanges as traders hope for clues about the United States economy and guidance on monetary policy.
Dr Yellen, in her speech on Friday, said balance sheets would likely swell again in future recessions as the Fed snaps up assets to stimulate the economy.
Joylin F. Telagen, research head at IB Gimenez Securities, said nothing had changed since her previous comment.
Yellen, for what it’s worth, acknowledged that possibility in her speech, noting that “the range of reasonably likely outcomes for the federal funds rate is quite wide” and could end up shy of the FOMC’s current dot plot targets. “That is very anemic”.
The US government data last week showed the economy growing only sluggishly in the second quarter at an annual pace of 1.1%.
Since exiting the recession in the summer of 2009, the USA economy has been growing sluggishly, making it the slowest recovery since World War II.
During the week from August 22 to August 26, the Sensex fell 294.75 points or 1.04 per cent and the NSE Nifty slipped 94.35 points or 1.08 per cent. After trading closed, Icahn said the reports were wrong and, in fact, he has bought more shares. That would be the fourth quarter in a row of drops.
The most influential movers on the index were gold stocks, including Barrick Gold, which rose 2.3%to $24.2, and Franco Nevada, up by the same margin to $95.81.
Before the Tuesday’ s opening bell, Best Buy reported GAAP diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of 0.56 US dollar for the second quarter ended July 30, 2016, an increase of 22 percent from a year ago.
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The October crude contract rose 31 cents at US$47.64 per barrel.
