Dow ends at record as Evergrande worries recede

WASHINGTON: The Dow finished at a record Friday, capping a strong week for US stocks, while European and Asian equities mostly rebounded as risks of contagion from troubled Chinese property giant Evergrande eased. While both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped Friday, all three major Wall Street indices scored weekly gains following mostly solid corporate earnings that have offset worries about inflation.

“While just about every company is talking about supply chain pressures, you’re not seeing a lot of companies talking about how demand is falling,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.

O’Hare said investors have been reassured by statements that companies have managed to pass on price increases to consumers, preserving profit margins. But some companies have sold off sharply after surprising investors with bad news. Snap plunged 26.6 percent as it reported a hit from Apple’s move to change its privacy settings that have made it more difficult to target advertising. Fellow social media companies Twitter and Facebook both lost about five percent.

Earlier, Chinese state media reported that Evergrande made a key offshore interest payment a day ahead of a weekend deadline, averting a default for now. The crisis at one of the nation’s biggest property developers, which is drowning in $300 billion of debt, has hammered investor sentiment and fueled fears of a spillover into the wider economy. Evergrande’s share price jumped more than four percent in Hong Kong, though that came a day after a drop of more than 12 percent sparked by its announcement that the planned sale of its property services unit had fallen through.

The payment helped boost sentiment in Asian and European equity trading. Stocks stumbled last month as investors worried about persistent supply chain problems that are stoking inflation and which are pushing monetary policymakers to begin to wind down economic stimulus measures.

But corporate earnings have largely beat expectations, with many companies having been able to pass along price hikes and maintain profits. Analyst Fawad Razaqzada at ThinkMarkets said that the records likely reflect a view by investors that the supply bottlenecks and surge in inflation are likely to be temporary after all, and that therefore central banks won’t tighten monetary policy too much.

“Central banks wouldn’t want to choke off economic growth by being too aggressive when they tighten their policies, especially as there have been some signs of weakening recovery of late,” he said. —AFP