@@@@ COMMODITIES - THE WEEK GONEBY @@@@ COMMODITIES - THE WEEK GONEBY Precious metals plunged, but other commodities rose this week on the back of strong economic data. Stocks, as measured by the S&P 500, edged up fractionally. In the lingo of Wall Street, to taper is not to tighten, a revelation that pushed the Dow industrials and benchmark S&P 500 to set both all-time closing and intraday record highs. The surge also led the Dow to close out the week with a seventh straight weekly gain, its longest winning streak since an eight-week rally that began in December 2010. Even after the U.S. central bank starts to scale back its stimulus, monetary policy is likely to be very accommodative for some time, perhaps for years, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said on CNBC on Friday. The Fed will not start to taper until the economy is able to walk on its own, thats a positive, said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors, in New York. From a catalyst perspective things are calm; were sitting just off record highs and in the near term were probably fairly valued. MSCIs all-country world equity index, which tracks shares in 45 countries, rose 0.43 percent. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 54.78 points, or 0.34 percent, to 16,064.77. The S&P 500 gained 8.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,804.76, and the Nasdaq Composite added 22.495 points, or 0.57 percent, to 3,991.649. Solid U.S. data this week also eased concern that weaker growth in China and the euro zone may set back the fragile global economic recovery, pointing to a gradually improving outlook for 2014, albeit with less Fed money printing. Earlier in the global session, MSCIs broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 percent after shedding 1.4 percent on Thursday. Japans Nikkei , getting an extra boost from the weaker yen, added 0.1 percent to edge close to its highest level of the year. European equity markets were largely steady, with the broad FTSEurofirst 300 index closing 0.1 percent higher at 1,296.92. A closely watched measure of stock market volatility, the Euro Stoxx 50 Volatility index, sank to a near seven-year low. Read more »
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 11:20:09 +0000