US markets end in green on Friday

18 Jan 2020 Evaluate

The US markets ended in green on Friday helped by more data suggesting the economy and corporate profits are in good health. The continued strength on Wall Street was widely attributed to Chinese GDP data even though the latest report showed China's economy grew at the slowest pace since 1990. The report from China's National Bureau of Statistics said Chinese GDP grew by 6.1 percent in 2019 compared to the 6.6 percent growth seen in 2018. However, the GDP growth matched street estimates, which seems to have allowed global traders to breathe a sigh of relief that the impact of the US-China trade war was not worse than feared.

More upbeat US economic data also generated buying interest, with a report from the Commerce Department showing a substantial increase in US housing starts in the month of December. The Commerce Department said housing starts skyrocketed by 16.9 percent to an annual rate of 1.608 million in December after jumping by 2.6 percent to a revised rate of 1.375 million in November. The surge came as a big surprise to street, who had expected housing starts to rise by 0.7 percent to a rate of 1.375 million from the 1.365 million originally reported for the previous month. With the much bigger than expected increase, housing starts soared to their highest level since hitting a rate of 1.649 million in December of 2006.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve released a report before the start of trading showing a modest pullback in US industrial production in the month of December. The Fed said industrial production fell by 0.3 percent in December after climbing by a downwardly revised 0.8 percent in November. Street had expected industrial production to dip by 0.2 percent compared to the 1.1 percent jump originally reported for the previous month. The pullback in production came as utilities output plunged by 5.6 percent in December, with unseasonably warm weather leading to a large decrease in demand for heating.

Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 50.46 points or 0.17 percent to 29348.10, Nasdaq added 31.81 points or 0.34 percent to 9388.94 and S&P 500 was up by 12.81 points or 0.39 percent to 3329.62.

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