While you were sleeping: Stocks move lower

Wednesday 1st April 2015

Wall Street moved lower, though it remained on track to post an advance for the first quarter of 2015, bolstered by a US economy that by and large continues to accelerate.

Indeed, the strength of the US economy warrants higher interest rates as early as June, President Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Jeffrey Lacker said in a speech on Tuesday.

"Given the improvements in the labour market and other indicators, June will likely be an appropriate time to raise the federal funds rate target,” Lacker said.

This week offers three key jobs reports including the government’s monthly nonfarm payrolls on Friday.

While the outlook is bright, "the economy still faces some challenges, including a sluggish housing market, potentially weaker exports and declines in government spending," Lacker said.

In afternoon trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.6 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.4 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.5 percent.

The Dow is on track to post a 0.9 percent increase for the past three months, with a 1.4 percent gain for the S&P and 4.3 percent advance for the Nasdaq.

“The S&P 500 hasn’t given us much this quarter because so much was already priced in,” William Hobbs, head of equity strategy at Barclays’ wealth management unit in London, told Bloomberg. “That doesn’t mean the S&P 500 won’t manage to eke out a positive return in 2015, it just means that markets elsewhere will do better.”

Declines in shares of Boeing and those of Caterpillar, each down 1.3 percent recently, led the Dow lower.

The latest reports showed US consumer confidence climbed to the second highest level since August 2007, while home prices in 20 US cities rose at an accelerated pace in the year ended in January. To be sure, growth is uneven with activity in the Chicago area contracting for a second straight month.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence rose, climbing to 101.3 in March, from an upwardly revised 98.8 in February.

“This month’s increase was driven by an improved short-term outlook for both employment and income prospects; consumers were less upbeat about business conditions,” Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas increased 4.6 percent in January on a year over year basis, up from a 4.4 percent gain in December.

"Rising confidence and home prices adds to the belief that the first quarter slowdown will be temporary," Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania, told Reuters.

The Institute for Supply Management Chicago’s business barometer rose to 46.3 this month, up from 45.8 in February.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index finished the session down 0.6 percent from the previous close. France’s CAC 40 Index and Germany’s DAX both declined 1 percent, while the UK’s FTSE 100 Index dropped 1.7 percent.

In the first quarter of 2015, the FTSE 100 gained 4.4 percent, while the DAX rallied 22 percent.

But the euro recorded its worst quarter since the 19-nation shared currency was introduced in 1999, according to Bloomberg.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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