With the wow factor conspicuously absent from the latest crop of smartphones and tablet PCs offered by vendors including Apple Inc., some experts are asking whether innovation has hit a wall in the post-Jobs era.
China watchers got a mixed view over the weekend of the country’s all-important manufacturing sector.
China’s government reported that manufacturing expanded in March, while a closely-watched private report said factories struggled with poor demand for their products.
The National Bureau of Statistics said Sunday that its official index of purchasing managers’ sentiment rose to 53.1 in March from 51 in February. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector.
The March report marked the fourth consecutive monthly increase and the index’s highest reading in a year.
At the same time, banking company HSBC issued a report that showed factory output fell in March for the fourth time in five months.
"Factory output was reduced largely in response to lackluster demand from domestic and external markets," the HSBC report said on line pay day loans.
The contrasting reports follow a pattern of recent months, as the two indexes have diverged.
Investors and analysts have been concerned that China’s extraordinary growth may be slowing too quickly.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao rattled investors recently when he said that China’s new gross domestic product growth forecast for 2012 is 7.5%, down from an earlier prediction of 8%.
A "hard landing" by China could ripple throughout the world. Troubles in Europe, the largest market for China’s goods, have intensified fears about a China slowdown.
Of course, China’s growth far exceeds what many developed countries are experiencing. China’s GDP rose 9.2% last year, while the U.S. economy grew 1.7%.
Payrolls in the U.S. probably increased by more than 200,000 workers in March for a fourth consecutive month as companies became more optimistic about the outlook for growth, economists said before a report this week.
Employment rose by 205,000 after climbing by 227,000 in February, according to the median projection of 54 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The last time hiring advanced at a similar pace and period was in late 1999-early 2000. The jobless rate probably held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent.
The pickup in hiring has boosted consumer confidence to a four-year high, raising the odds that gains in household spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, can be sustained. The improvement in the job market may also help Americans weather the rising cost of gasoline, which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said posed a risk to growth.
Central bankers at a Federal Reserve conference in Washington rekindled a debate over the best criteria for altering interest rates, pitting simple rules against complex models that estimate growth and inflation.
Lars Svensson, a deputy governor for Sweden
Stock futures are mixed Wednesday after a rocky start to the week, with the latest housing report expected to show previously occupied home sales are reaching a clip not seen in two years.
Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 7 points to 13,115 and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose 0.2 points to 1,400.2. But Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 1.25 points to 2,734.25.
Stocks closed lower Tuesday for only the second time in two weeks as China hinted at a slowdown.
European markets rallied early after a similar sell-off Tuesday as worries fade about the debt crisis, at least for now.
In Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.2 percent to 7,065 while the CAC-40 in France was 0.3 percent higher at 3,542. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.1 percent at 5,897 ahead of the government’s annual budget.
Asian markets, however, remain unsettled by the latest signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy.
The Nikkei 225 index in Japan, which counts China as its most important trading partner, fell 0.6 percent to 10,086.49, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.2 percent to 20,856.63. China’s main Shanghai index recovered 0.1 percent to close to 2,378 paperless payday loans.20, having dropped sharply in the previous session.
U.S. traders appeared more optimistic 30 minutes before the opening bell and ahead of the latest housing data, which is expected a half hour after the market opens.
There has been some good news in each of the housing reports released during the first two days of the week, and more of the same is expected Wednesday.
The National Association of Realtors releases its report on February home re-sales, and economists expect that sales increased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.6 million last month, according to a FactSet survey.
Shares of homebuilders rose in premarket trading. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. rose 4 percent to $2.89. Lennar Corp., PulteGroup Inc., and KB Home rose as well.
The tech sector may get a boost after Oracle Corp. reported late Tuesday that sales of new software licenses accelerated in the third quarter, suggesting that the broader economy is healing. Oracle shares were up 2 percent at $30.70 in premarket trading.
Last Tuesday the Dow Industrials popped firmly above 13,000, surpassing the peaks of mid-2011. Most remarkable is the stunning recovery of the Dow Industrials up 23.67 per cent from its 52-week low of 10,655 posted on Monday, Oct. 3, 2011.
Dow 13000 also means a 90 per cent retracement of the losses sustained during the great 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Quite a remarkable reward for the brave who elected to be invested, and quite a frustrating letdown for the bears who are still waiting for the double dip recession and the related test of the 2009 lows. The bears still argue that current stock prices are not sustainable because of the unresolved issues of the eurozone, the U.S. housing and employment problems and a slowing of the Chinese economy.
Now according to the financial media it appears even bullish investors are beginning to question the ability of the Dow and most of the world bourses to hold at these lofty levels. Should they listen to the bears and cash in, or should they remain fully invested?
The latest worry served up by the bears is the failure of the Dow Transportation average to
Thousands of Romanians, including teenage students who cut class, marched through their capital on Thursday to demand the resignation of their government for imposing harsh austerity measures in order to receive international loans for the nation’s battered economy.
It was one of the largest protests in recent times in Bucharest and came after a week of sometimes violent anti-government demonstrations.
As the march reached University Square, protesters blocked traffic and shouted what has become a trademark slogan aimed at President Traian Basescu: “Get out, you miserable dog.”
The square _ a focal point of recent protests _ is historically significant for Romanians because it was a centerpiece of the 1989 anti-communist revolution that led to Romania’s birth of democracy.
On Thursday, some protesters pretended to hang Basescu and his close political ally, Tourism and Regional Development Minister Elena Udrea, by stringing their dummies to gallows set up in the square.
“Resign!” and “Down with Basescu!” other protesters screamed.
Some 14-year-old students at a school located along the route of the march abandoned class to join the demonstration. “To prison with you!” the students yelled at their president.
Police said 7,000 attended the rally, while organizers claimed the crowd was far larger.
In 2009, Romania took a two-year euro20 billion ($27.5 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank as its economy shrank by 7.1 percent. It imposed harsh austerity measures under the agreement, reducing public wages by 25 percent and increasing taxes. Anger has mounted over the wage cuts, slashed benefits, higher taxes and widespread corruption.
On Thursday, Basescu made his first public appearance since the protests began a week ago in an address to ambassadors in Bucharest. He spoke about Iran, the Middle East, domestic reforms and the “Arab Spring,” but did not touch on the demonstrations or the anger over the state of Romania’s economy.
During the Bucharest rally, one protester who only identified himself as Tudor, a 43-year-old locksmith said: “We want decent salaries and pensions. We want change _ from the top to the bottom.”
Another protester, a 55-year-old nurse named Lorelei said, “We wouldn’t have needed to have austerity measures if our governments hadn’t stolen so much and bled us dry.” She said she has attended all this week’s anti-government rallies.
Three opposition parties organized Thursday’s march, with protesters arriving in the capital from all over the country. Opposition leaders and Romanian personalities addressed the crowd before the march.
Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is preparing to start talks to try to form a four-month coalition government, aimed at securing continued rescue funds for the near-bankrupt eurozone country.
Papandreou is due to meet President Karolos Papoulias at noon (1000GMT) Saturday, hours after winning a confidence vote in the Socialist-led parliament on a pledge that he was willing to step aside and form a cross-party caretaker government.
But it remains unclear whether the main opposition conservatives and other parties will take part in the talks and abandon their demand for a snap general election.
Global stocks gave up some of their recent gains Monday amid concerns over Italy’s ability to get a handle on its colossal debt pile, while the yen slid in the wake of another attempt by the Japanese monetary authorities to weaken the currency.
Last week, stocks enjoyed one of their best weeks in months as investors breathed a sigh of relief that eurozone leaders finally presented the broad outlines of a convincing anti-crisis strategy. The three-pronged strategy of boosting the bailout fund, getting private creditors to take a bigger hit on their Greek debt holdings and the banks to raise more capital was largely viewed favorably by the markets, though details need to be ironed out.
Many analysts, however, think that Europe will end up having to do more, especially if bond market investors continue to ask for more in return for buying up Italian debt _ a poorly received auction last Friday has fueled concerns over the country.
Italy is the eurozone’s third largest economy and only Greece has more debt as a percentage of national income. Its debts dwarf the euro1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) Europe’s bailout fund will have at its disposal if last week’s commitments are delivered.
“We remain sceptical that the plan will prove enough to restore financial market stability for long, with some signs of disappointment already starting to creep into the market as Italian 10 year yields continue to march above 6 percent,” said Lee Hardman, an analyst at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
Investors more cautious view of last week’s plan weighed on stock markets Monday.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.1 percent at 5,641 while Germany’s DAX fell 1.6 percent to 6,260. The CAC-40 in France was 1.1 percent lower at 3,282.
Wall Street was also poised for a lower opening _ Dow futures were down 0.8 percent at 12,070 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell 1 percent to 1,268.
Earlier, the main point of interest in financial markets was the Bank of Japan’s latest intervention to weaken the yen, which had hit a new post World War II high against the dollar.
The strong yen has dented earnings of Japanese corporations such as Nintendo Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. and hurt the economy’s recovery from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Finance Minister Jun Azumi said monetary authorities could continue intervening.
The dollar surged about 5 percent to above 79 yen for a while, before slipping back to 77.81 yen. Japan’s export sector _ whose fortunes are largely tied to the relative strength of the yen _ rose abruptly. Isuzu Motors Corp. jumped 3.7 percent. Canon Inc. rose 1 percent and Nikon Corp. added 1.8 percent. Nintendo Co. gained 1.5 percent.
Those gains helped limit the losses on Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index. It closed 0.7 percent lower at 8,988.39.
Analysts are skeptical over whether the intervention will have a long-lasting impact. Previous efforts this year have provided short-term relief.
The intervention is likely to feature at a summit of leaders from the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations in Cannes, France, later this week. How to get the global economy moving again is likely to the main topic of debate.
There’s also a lot of U.S. economic data to digest this week, culminating in Friday’s monthly jobs report on Friday.
“This month is going to be another watershed insight into whether we are looking at a low growth environment or something worse,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney. “To maintain the low growth environment view, the market is going to want to see positive employment growth.”
The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank also meet to decide on their monetary policies this week. Mario Draghi will on Thursday hold his first meeting and press conference as chief of the ECB and successor to Jean-Claude Trichet. Investors will be looking for signs that the bank is considering cutting interest rates and that it will continue its program to buy bonds. The program, used intermittently by the ECB, has helped keep bond yields down so far this year in Italy and Spain.
Elsewhere in Asia, mainland Chinese shares were mixed. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index snapped a five-session winning streak by falling 0.2 percent to 2,468.25, while the Shenzhen Composite Index added 0.5 percent to 1,040.93.
In Sydney, shares of Australian flag carrier Qantas Airways Ltd. jumped 4.3 percent after a court ordered employees of the world’s 10th-largest airlines back to work. The airline had grounded its entire fleet on Saturday following weeks of strikes by its workers, but an arbitration court on Sunday ordered an end to the strikes and canceled the staff lockout.
Oil prices tracked equities lower, with the benchmark rate for December delivery down 49 cents at $92.85 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Politicians hate yielding power. But in recession-hit Greece, more governing Socialists are choosing to do so rather than back Prime Minister George Papandreou’s deeply hated austerity measures.
In growing numbers, Socialist lawmakers are calling for an end to their single-party government, unable to face their angry constituents after two years of punishing tax hikes and slashed pensions, jobs and salaries.
Pressed hard by Papandreou, parliament this week approved some of the harshest cuts since the financial crisis began in order to appease international creditors and keep Greece solvent.
But for many, it was a step too far: Two days of rioting outside parliament left one man dead and nearly 200 wounded. Unions staged a 48-hour general strike that shut down schools, shops, offices and transportation around the country and occupied ministry buildings.
“Papandreou now has large sections of society against him,” said Spyros Tritsas, chief editor of the weekly current affairs magazine Epikaira, which has been critical of Papandreou’s handling of the crisis.
The Socialists themselves showed increasing signs of discontent, as popular support for their party continues to fall dramatically.
Greeks are heading into a fourth year of recession with 16.5 percent unemployment and a rapidly expanding class of poor. Now they face yet more emergency tax hikes, pension cuts, and steep levies on their homes.
One prominent government deputy choked back tears before voting for the tough new measures Thursday, and promised it was the last time she would bow to leadership pressure. Others said they had simply had enough.
“At this point, we have reached our limit … No (party) can carry this burden alone. There must be an emergency government that will be in power for as long as is required,” Socialist deputy Nikos Salagiannis said.
Four other Socialists during the debate also openly demanded that Papandreou hold talks with opposition parties on an emergency power-sharing deal.
In the end, lawmakers approved the latest round of cuts late Thursday, but the vote gnawed at Papandreou’s grip on power, midway through his four-year term in office.
A dissenting Socialist vote cut his majority in parliament to just three seats _ raising new doubts that he will be able to see through two more years of unpopular reforms.
The Greek political crisis comes as European leaders grapple over possible solutions to stop the eurozone debt crisis spreading from the three smaller nations that have already received bailouts _ Greece, Ireland and Portugal _ to major economies that are struggling, such as Italy and Spain.
Since May 2010, Greece has been surviving on rescue loans worth euro110 billion ($152 billion) from eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. But it has tried to meet deficit-cutting demands mainly by raising taxes, arguing that structural reforms to ease long-term spending on health care and its bloated public sector will take longer to show results.
Attempts at cross-party support for Greece’s recovery effort have fallen flat.
Opposition parties on the left and right oppose the measures as unfair and doomed to fail, while the government says it must meet its commitments as each rescue loan installment _ paid out roughly every quarter _ is essential to prevent a chaotic default payday loans with no fax.
So far, the austerity has hammered Greece’s once-booming private sector.
Since the debt crisis started in late 2009, more than 275,000 people have lost their jobs and store closures have exceeded 20 percent in some parts of Athens and other cities.
“The government is heading toward a state of collapse … because it is unable to stop the rapid decline in people’s living standards,” Tritsas told The Associated Press. “The middle class is being pulled apart, as the measures are now hurting average people and small businesses who had little financial reliance on the state.”
A poll commissioned by the magazine and published in mid-October found that 81 percent of respondents thought Greece’s financial situation had got “much worse” in the past 12 months, and that 55 percent said they would be unable to pay the new emergency taxes. Nearly nine out of 10 Greeks now disagree with Papandreou’s policies in general.
No margin of error was available for the VPRC poll of 1,000 adults conducted earlier in the month.
The Socialists won the 2009 election by a landslide, with nearly 44 percent of the vote and a 10-seat majority in the 300-member parliament. Rival conservatives were widely discredited for corruption scandals, tipping Greece into recession, and hiding the true extent of the country’s economic troubles.
Two years later, seven of Papandreou’s deputies have become anti-government independents and three others have quit politics due to their opposition to the austerity measures.
“If those three deputies had not given up their seats in parliament, the government would already have fallen,” Tritsas said. “Do I think the Socialists themselves could bring down the government? I think it’s likely. It’s hard to see (early) elections being avoided.”
Tritsas said he did not expect deeply entrenched dominance by the country’s two main parties to disappear, but predicted those parties would be forced to reinvent themselves.
Support for the Socialists has sunk to around 20 percent, according to recent opinion polls which give the conservatives a double-digit lead.
And labor unions, once a pillar of Socialist support, are now openly calling for the government to go.
“This government has ignored the popular uprising by approving this terrible law,” Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary-general of the civil servant union, Adedy, told the AP on Friday after two days of riots shook Athens. “Our answer is: get out as fast as you can, there is no place for you in Greece any longer.”
Meanwhile, the remaining 153 members of Papandreou’s parliamentary group dread weekend visits to their constituencies, where opposition-organized groups of “angry citizens” often greet them with eggs, yogurt, and chants of abuse.
Cell-phone videos of the attacks have been frequently posted on the Internet and shown on television.
The Socialists, government lawmaker Andreas Triantafilopoulos told parliament, have been handed an unendurable task.
“We have been insulted, mocked, heckled, and assaulted,” he said. “That’s because we’ve had to shoulder the weight of these reforms alone.”