“We don’t guess, we don’t speculate and we don’t assume,” he said.
On Wall Street, healthcare services company McKesson helped drive the market by jumping 10.6 per cent after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said that “in the near term, the election will have no effects” on interest-rate policy.Credit: Bloomberg
Lyft revved up by 22.8 per cent after the ride-hailing app breezed past Wall Street’s sales and profit expectations, and Ralph Lauren rose 6.6 per cent after customers in Asia and Europe helped it deliver a bigger profit than expected.
They helped make up for bank stocks, which gave back some of their stellar gains from the day before. Other “Trump trades” that had rocketed higher after the election also lost some of their juice.
JPMorgan Chase fell 4.3 per cent, a day after banks decisively led the market on expectations that a stronger economy and lighter regulation would mean fatter profits. It and Goldman Sachs were the biggest reasons for the Dow Jones’s slight loss.
Smaller US stocks also lagged the market, with the Russell 2000 index down 0.4 per cent. A day before, it more than doubled the S&P 500’s gain on expectations that Trump’s America-First priorities would most benefit smaller, more domestically focused companies.
The stock that’s become most synonymous with the president-elect, Trump Media & Technology Group, fell 23 per cent.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 44.06 points to 5,973.10. The Dow edged down by 0.59 to 43,729.34, and the Nasdaq composite gained 285.99 to 19,269.46.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.33 per cent from 4.44 per cent late Wednesday. It gave back a chunk of its surge from the prior day, driven by expectations that Trump’s plans for higher tariffs, lower tax rates and lighter regulation could lead to bigger economic growth, US government debt and inflation.
A report on Thursday showed slightly more US workers applied for unemployment benefits, though the number remains relatively low. A separate report suggested US workers improved their productivity during the summer, which can help keep a lid on inflation, but not by quite as much as economists expected.
In stock markets abroad, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3 per cent after the Bank of England cut its own interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point.
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In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3 per cent amid worries about the potential for a revival of trade tensions under a Trump administration.
“I think everybody’s going to be worried about Trump’s tariffs because that’s one of the things in his playbook. And so we’ll have to see how things develop in the early stages of his presidency this time,” said Neil Newman, head of strategy for Astris Advisory Japan.
Stocks rallied 2 per cent in Hong Kong and 2.6 per cent in Shanghai rallied after the Chinese government reported exports jumped in October at the fastest pace in more than two years.
Trump has promised to slap blanket 60 per cent tariffs on all Chinese imports, raising them still more if Beijing makes a move to invade the self-governing island of Taiwan. That would add to the burdens Beijing is facing as it struggles to revive slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
But the impact may be less drastic than feared, Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a report.
“We expect shipments to stay strong in the coming months –- any drag from potential Trump tariffs may not materialise until the second half of next year,” Huang said.
AP
