U.S. equities post mixed results amid recovery concerns, tec
Wall Street's major averages had mixed performance last week as investors' concerns on economic recovery weighed on the Dow, and tech sector gained from risk-off sentiment and investors' buying of the dip.
For the week ending Friday, the Dow continued to fall 1.75 percent, the S&P 500 weakened 0.63 percent, while the Nasdaq rebounded 1.11 percent.
The S&P U.S.-Listed China 50 index, which is designed to track the performance of the 50 largest Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges by total market cap, logged a weekly loss of 0.83 percent.
The stocks benefiting from economic recovery came under new pressures from resurgence of COVID-19 infections in Europe and parts of the United States.
The possible reintroduction of lockdown measures amid rising number of COVID-19 infectious dampened market sentiment while U.S. Congress is seen less likely to pass a bill on additional fiscal stimulus ahead of the general election in early November.
The huge income transfer and job protection programs as well as the steady re-opening of economic activity, which are seen as two drivers of U.S. economic recovery since this spring, are now fading, said investment advisory firm MRB Partners on Friday.
U.S. political wrangling looks to further delay an extension in the still-needed fiscal support programs and COVID-19 infections worsen after the arrival of the new school year, according to MRB Partners.
Concerns about the spread of the pandemic in Europe have continued to weigh on the stock market, but the battle over the U.S. Supreme Court could end up having a bigger bearing on the near-term outlook by further reducing the chances of a fiscal stimulus deal and adding to the uncertainty over November's elections, said Capital Economics on Friday.
As the heavy sell-off in tech-dominated Nasdaq in the beginning of this month removed some froth and some investors continued to rotate out of tech stocks into value stocks, risk aversion also drove investors back to the tech sector.
A number of investors followed the doctrine of buying the dip in big-name tech stocks.
The shares of Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix gained 5.09 percent, 4.75 percent, 3.7 percent and 2.75 percent in the last week, respectively.
U.S. economy maintained continuous recovery but at a slower pace as shown by latest data on durable goods orders, purchasing managers' index in service and the Chicago Fed National Activity Index.
The United States would add 800,000 new jobs in the non-farm sector in September in comparison with 1.4 million in August with the unemployment rate falling to 8.1 percent, according to Michelle Meyer, U.S. economist with BofA Securities, Inc.
Attention should be paid to the uneven nature of the economic recovery with lower-income and less-educated workers more adversely impacted and many of them may soon shift into the "long-term" unemployed, said Meyer in a note on Friday.
