Saturday 11 May 2013

Stocks hit all-time high in US, 5½-year high in Japan

US stocks ended the week at a new all-time high. The S&P 500 rose 0.43 percent on Friday to close at 1,633.70. It was up 1.2 percent for the week, its third consecutive weekly gain, and is up 14.6 percent so far this year.

Japanese stocks performed even better on Friday as the yen weakened past 100 per dollar. The Nikkei 225 rose 2.9 percent to a 5½-year high of 14,607.54. The Nikkei was up 6.7 percent for the week, the biggest weekly gain since December 2009.

Economic data from Japan on Friday were mixed. The Cabinet Office's economy watchers survey showed that the service sector current conditions index fell to 56.5 in April from 57.3 in March. However, the future conditions index rose to 57.8 from 57.5.

Also, Japanese bank loans rose 1.7 percent in April from a year earlier, better than the 1.5 percent increase in March.

However, in China, new bank loans fell to 792.9 billion yuan in April from 1.06 trillion yuan in March.

Elsewhere in Asia, India reported on Friday that its industrial output rose 2.5 percent in March from a year ago, accelerating from the 0.5 percent increase in February.

In Europe, Italy's one-year borrowing costs fell to a record low of 0.703 percent as it sold a total of 10 billion euros of bills on Friday.

Meanwhile, economic data out of Germany on Friday were also positive. Exports rose 0.5 percent in March while imports rose 0.8 percent. The trade surplus narrowed slightly to 17.6 billion euros from 17.7 billion in February.

In the UK, the goods trade deficit shrank to 9.056 billion pounds in March from 9.165 billion pounds in February as exports jumped 5.0 percent but construction output fell 2.4 percent in the first quarter to the lowest level since the last quarter of 1994.

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