FKLI Related News

U.S. stocks rose, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its highest level since 2007, as speculation the Federal Reserve will continue stimulus measures overshadowed concern over spending cuts and China’s economy. Airlines rallied while industrial and energy stocks fell as oil dropped to its lowest level since December.

Yahoo! (YHOO) Inc. jumped 3.5 percent after an analyst at Barclays Plc raised his rating on the company. Homebuilders advanced as D.R. Horton Inc. and Ryland Group Inc. rose at least 3.2 percent. Google Inc. (GOOG) jumped 1.9 percent to a record, while Apple Inc. retreated 2.4 percent to its lowest level in more than a year. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.5 percent to 1,525.20 at 4 p.m. in New York, after falling as much as 0.4 percent earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 38.16 points, or 0.3 percent, to 14,127.82, its highest level since October 2007. About 6 billion shares exchanged hands on U.S. exchanges today, 4.4 percent below the three-month average.

The bull market in U.S. equities is entering its fifth year this month after the S&P 500 surged 124 percent from a 12-year low in 2009 amid better-than-estimated corporate earnings and three rounds of bond purchases by the Fed to keep interest rates low and stimulate the economy. The S&P 500 has climbed 6.9 percent this year and is trading at 2.6 percent below its record of 1,565.15 reached in October 2007. The Dow is less than 0.3 percent from its high of 14,164.53.

Stocks rose as Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said the U.S. central bank should press on with $85 billion in monthly bond buying while tracking possible costs and risks from the unprecedented program. Equities fell early in the trading day as China’s services industries expanded last month at the slowest pace since September. The non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 54.5 in February from 56.2 in January, the Beijing-based National Bureau of Statistics and China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

Automatic cuts in U.S. federal spending, half of which are in defense programs, went into effect March 1 following a congressional impasse. The government will reduce spending by $1.2 trillion over the next nine years, including $85 billion in this fiscal year. The budget cuts, known as sequestration, will cause a 0.6 percentage-point reduction in economic growth this year, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated. Even as President Barack Obama phoned Democratic and Republican legislators over the weekend, Obama’s aides and congressional leaders signaled the budget reductions would continue for weeks, possibly months.

Index futures and stock index went on creating a new weekly high today as election fear subsided for the moment. Institutional investors are putting money back to the market and starting to load up their holding mostly in blue chip stocks. FKLI spot month contract opened higher this morning at 1,640 following Dow Jones’ climb to a 5 year high. Today’s Support and Resistance for March contract is located around 1,628 and 1,645 respectively.