Stocks close higher Friday, Nasdaq notches best quarter since 2020
Stocks rose Friday as Wall Street wrapped up a volatile, but winning quarter that saw more Federal Reserve rate tightening and a mini-financial panic spurred on by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
The S&P 500 added 1.44% to close at 4,109.31, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.74% to end at 12,221.91. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 415.12 points, or 1.26%, closing at 33,274.15.
The market got a boost Friday after the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge showed a cooler-than-expected increase in prices. The core Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which excludes energy and food costs, rose 0.3% in February, less than the 0.4% expected by economists polled by Dow Jones.
Virgin Orbit is collapsing as share price plummets
Virgin Orbit is on the brink of bankruptcy. The company on Thursday halted operations and laid off nearly all of its staff. Its stock was trading around 20 cents Friday, leaving it with a market value of about $74 million.
When Virgin Orbit closed its SPAC deal, it raised less than half of the nearly $500 million expected due to high shareholder redemptions, shortening its runway. With the broader markets turning against riskier yet-unprofitable assets like many new space stocks, Virgin Orbit shares began a steady slide, further limiting its ability to raise substantial outside investment.
Britain to join Indo-Pacific trade bloc in biggest trade deal since Brexit
On Friday, the government said it will join the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, unlocking access to a region with a total GDP of £11 trillion ($13.6 trillion).
The U.K. said this was the country’s largest post-Brexit trade deal and makes it the first European nation to join the CPTPP.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the deal puts the U.K. at the center of a dynamic and growing group of Pacific economies.
China’s chip industry will be ‘reborn’ under U.S. sanctions, Huawei says
China’s chip industry will be “reborn” as a result of U.S. sanctions, a top boss at Huawei said Friday, as the Chinese telecommunications giant claimed a breakthrough in semiconductor design technology.
Semiconductors have been a flash point in the broader U.S.-China battle for tech supremacy. Over the past few years, Washington has attempted to cut China and Chinese firms off through sanctions and export restrictions.
In 2019, Huawei was put on a U.S. black list called the Entity List, which barred American firms from selling technology to the Chinese company.
PMET share of Singapore’s job vacancies rises in 2022
In 2022, a rising share of Singapore’s record job vacancies came from professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) latest Job Vacancies report on Thursday (Mar 30) showed.
The share of PMET vacancies rose to 56 per cent, from 53 per cent in 2021 – though this was still shy of the pre-pandemic 2019 figure of 58.4 per cent.In a media briefing on the report, MOM director of manpower research and statistics Ang Boon Heng said the share of PMET vacancies has trended upwards over the years, and is expected to continue rising, due to structural trends such as digital transformation.
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