US stocks rise for second straight session

NEW YORK – Wall Street stocks shrugged off early weakness on Friday and rose for a second straight session, adopting a perspective of measured optimism following a busy week of mixed earnings.

“It’s a little bit of a relief trade,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare, adding that investors remain “a little guarded”.

The week’s economic data was “okay”, said Mr O’Hare, who noted that earnings from influential technology companies largely met expectations and in some cases exceeded them.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.8 per cent to 34,098.16.

The broad-based S&P 500 also advanced 0.8 per cent to 4,169.48, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.7 per cent to 12,226,58.

Among economic data points, the Federal Reserve’s favoured measure of inflation, the annual personal consumption expenditures price index, slowed in March ahead of the US central bank’s meeting in the first week of May.

Most analysts expect the Fed to again lift interest rates by a quarter-point on Wednesday in response to inflation.

Amazon dropped 4 per cent despite reporting better-than-expected earnings on concerns about weakening demand in its cloud computing business.

But Intel jumped 4 per cent, even as it reported a loss of US$2.8 billion (S$3.7 billion), its biggest-ever quarterly loss. However, analysts said the gains reflected hopes that the chip company’s business has bottomed out.

Oil giant ExxonMobil jumped 1.3 per cent after reporting that first-quarter profits more than doubled to US$11.4 billion, reflecting better refining industry conditions and a boost from higher oil and gas output.

But First Republic plunged 43.5 per cent amid doubts over its prospects after the bank disclosed a big drop in deposits. AFP