All the news you need to stay informed about what’s currently driving the market – courtesy of Raffa Wealth Management, LLC.
The surprise announcement in Japan of additional stimulus measures combined with positive US economic news to drive global equity prices higher over the week. The Dow and S&P 500 hit new record highs of 17,390.5 and 2018.1 respectively. The Dow rose 3.5% for the week and the S&P 500 gained 2.7%. Both indices finished the month in positive territory after being down as much as 5%. Internationally, Europe gained 2.9% and Japan surged 7.3% for the week. The 10 year Treasury yield rose as investors moved to riskier investments. It ended the week at 2.34%. Oil prices continued their slide falling to $80.54 a barrel. Article
The Bank of Japan announced a surprise move to pump trillions of dollars into the economy in an attempt to stimulate growth. It will expand asset buying by as much as 33% and buy government bonds, stocks and real estate funds. The buying will well surpass what the Fed has undertaken. The country’s national pension fund also said it would change its investment allocation increasing its allocation to Japanese and Foreign stocks by 10 percentage points each. Article
The Fed formally announced the end to its bond buying program know and “Quantitative Easing III,” but offered no new details on when it plans to begin raising interest rates and kept the language of short term interest rates remain near zero for a “considerable time.”
The US economy grew at a 3.5% rate in the third quarter above estimates driven by high military spending and reduced imports. Article
US consumer spending dropped 0.2% in September.
Facebook, MasterCard, Visa, Exxon and Chevron all offered upbeat earnings reports. Twitter and Sony posted mixed numbers, while Deutsche Bank and Samsung showed disappointing quarterly numbers.
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