On open, Wall Street climbed despite a host of uncertainties: weak jobs data and a spike in oil prices, reports the Wall Street Journal.
According to published reports, OPEC, hitherto the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, rejected calls to spike production – by Pres. George Bush. He commented that OPEC should allow its biggest customer’s economy to "slowdown." I wonder if he was referring to the current slowdown i.e. wake of recession. Nonetheless, oil continues to trade above $100 a barrel and OPEC denies insinuations that demand has increased. One Saudi official commented that the spike in international oil prices was due to increased speculation.
In aggregrate, not a lot of ubeat news for the markets: Asian bourses closed lower Wednesday on the heels of poor performances on the Street so far this week. China’s benchmark, the Shanghai composite was down a percent on worries the government might introduce further monetary tightening to "slow down" inflation.
As of 10 am in New York, the Dow industrials average stood slightly above the 12,000 mark; the upward movement comes after a four day slump by the Dow.
Meanwhile, the NASDAQ was up by 20 points while the Standard and Poor’s 500 index was up 11 points. Leading the NASDAQ was Intel, which announced recently that its profit forecast would be lower due to less expensive flash memory.
That scenario follows a jobs report that stated that nonfarms payrolls were lower by 23,000 last month. However, a government report said that productivity was up 1.9 percent in Q4 of last year.
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