
S&P 500, Nasdaq new record highs on strong labour data
Nvidia was trading at a record high, up 2.2 per cent, and was track to become the most valuable company in history, with the chipmaker's market capitalisation nearing $US4 trillion ($A6.1trillion).
Data showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 147,000 jobs last month after an upwardly revised 144,000 advance in May, while economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising 110,000. Unemployment fell to 4.1 per cent last month, against expectations of a rise to 4.3 per cent.
"We were all expecting the hard data would start to show some cracks, and we really haven't seen that with the jobs report coming in much better than expected," said Brian Klimke, chief market strategist at Cetera Investment Management LLC.
"That just puts the Fed on pause and gives it more time to wait right now because the labour market is really resilient."
Traders quickly priced out chances of an interest-rate cut in July, with the odds of a 25-basis-point reduction in September at 69.2 per cent, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool, down from 74 per cent a week ago.
The data was released a day early because of the Independence Day holiday on Friday. Trading volumes were lighter than usual on Thursday with markets due to close early.
Another dataset showed the number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell to a six-week low last week.
US services sector activity picked up in June as orders rebounded but employment contracted for the third time this year, underlining the impact of policy uncertainty on businesses.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq extended their record-winning session as signs of a resilient economy and easing trade tensions following a series of agreements between the United States and other countries continue to propel stocks higher.
Meanwhile, the blue-chip Dow was just 0.8 per cent below all-time highs touched in December.
All three main indexes were on track to end the holiday-truncated week on a positive note, if gains hold.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the US House of Representatives advanced President Donald Trump's massive tax-cut and spending bill toward a final yes-or-no vote, appearing to overcome internal party divisions over its cost.
The legislation is expected to add $US3.4 trillion ($A5.2 trillion) to the nation's $US36.2 trillion ($A55.1 trillion) in debt over the next decade, according to nonpartisan analysts.
In early trading on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 284.02 points, or 0.64 per cent, to 44,769.03, the S&P 500 gained 41.23 points, or 0.67 per cent, to 6,268.65, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 161.74 points, or 0.79 per cent, to 20,554.87.
Shares of chip design software firms Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems climbed three per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively, in premarket trading after the US lifted export restrictions on chip design software to China, signaling a thaw in trade tensions between the world's top two economies.
Tripadvisor climbed 15 per cent after the Wall Street Journal reported activist investor Starboard Value had built a more than nine per cent stake in the online travel company.
Datadog jumped 9.4 per cent after the cloud security firm was set to replace Juniper Networks on the S&P 500.
US solar stocks jumped in early trading, with First Solar rising about 10 per cent to become the top-performing individual stock on the S&P 500 index.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.53-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 2.29-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 36 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 85 new highs and 13 new lows.
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West Australian
an hour ago
- West Australian
Air India Express warned about checks, forged records
India's aviation watchdog reprimanded Air India's budget carrier in March for not timely changing engine parts of an Airbus A320 as directed by the European Union's aviation safety agency, and falsifying records to show compliance, a government memo showed. Air India Express told Reuters it acknowledged the error to the Indian watchdog and undertook "remedial action and preventive measures". Reacting to the Reuters story on Friday, the EU agency said it will investigate the matter. Air India has been under intense scrutiny since the June Boeing Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad which killed all but one of the 242 people onboard. The world's worst aviation disaster in a decade is still being investigated. The engine issue in the Air India Express' Airbus was raised on March 18, months before the crash. But the regulator has this year also warned parent Air India for breaching rules for flying three Airbus planes with overdue checks on escape slides, and in June warned it about "serious violations" of pilot duty timings. Air India Express is a subsidiary of Air India, which is owned by the Tata Group. It has more than 115 aircraft and flies to more than 50 destinations, with 500 daily flights. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency in 2023 issued an airworthiness directive to address a "potential unsafe condition" on CFM International LEAP-1A engines, asking for replacement of some components such as engine seals and rotating parts, saying some manufacturing deficiencies had been found. The agency's directive said "this condition, if not corrected, could lead to failure of affected parts, possibly resulting in high energy debris release, with consequent damage to, and reduced control of, the aeroplane". The Indian government's confidential memo in March sent to the airline, seen by Reuters, said that surveillance by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed the parts modification "was not complied" on an engine of an Airbus A320 "within the prescribed time limit". "In order to show that the work has been carried out within the prescribed limits, the AMOS records have apparently been altered/forged," the memo added, referring to the Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Operating System software used by airlines to manage maintenance and airworthiness. The mandatory modification was required on Air India Express' VT-ATD plane, the memo added. That plane typically flies on domestic routes and some international destinations such as Dubai and Muscat, according to the AirNav Radar website. The lapse "indicates that the accountable manager has failed to ensure quality control," it added. Air India Express told Reuters its technical team missed the scheduled implementation date for parts replacement due to the migration of records on its monitoring software, and fixed the problem soon after it was identified.


Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
Air India Express warned about checks, forged records
India's aviation watchdog reprimanded Air India's budget carrier in March for not timely changing engine parts of an Airbus A320 as directed by the European Union's aviation safety agency, and falsifying records to show compliance, a government memo showed. Air India Express told Reuters it acknowledged the error to the Indian watchdog and undertook "remedial action and preventive measures". Reacting to the Reuters story on Friday, the EU agency said it will investigate the matter. Air India has been under intense scrutiny since the June Boeing Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad which killed all but one of the 242 people onboard. The world's worst aviation disaster in a decade is still being investigated. The engine issue in the Air India Express' Airbus was raised on March 18, months before the crash. But the regulator has this year also warned parent Air India for breaching rules for flying three Airbus planes with overdue checks on escape slides, and in June warned it about "serious violations" of pilot duty timings. Air India Express is a subsidiary of Air India, which is owned by the Tata Group. It has more than 115 aircraft and flies to more than 50 destinations, with 500 daily flights. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency in 2023 issued an airworthiness directive to address a "potential unsafe condition" on CFM International LEAP-1A engines, asking for replacement of some components such as engine seals and rotating parts, saying some manufacturing deficiencies had been found. The agency's directive said "this condition, if not corrected, could lead to failure of affected parts, possibly resulting in high energy debris release, with consequent damage to, and reduced control of, the aeroplane". The Indian government's confidential memo in March sent to the airline, seen by Reuters, said that surveillance by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed the parts modification "was not complied" on an engine of an Airbus A320 "within the prescribed time limit". "In order to show that the work has been carried out within the prescribed limits, the AMOS records have apparently been altered/forged," the memo added, referring to the Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Operating System software used by airlines to manage maintenance and airworthiness. The mandatory modification was required on Air India Express' VT-ATD plane, the memo added. That plane typically flies on domestic routes and some international destinations such as Dubai and Muscat, according to the AirNav Radar website. The lapse "indicates that the accountable manager has failed to ensure quality control," it added. Air India Express told Reuters its technical team missed the scheduled implementation date for parts replacement due to the migration of records on its monitoring software, and fixed the problem soon after it was identified.


The Advertiser
6 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Stocks dip, dollar slumps as Trump deal deadline looms
Stocks have slipped despite record highs for Wall Street overnight as US President Donald Trump's deadline for trade deals looms. The dollar retraced some of Thursday's gains with US markets already shut for the holiday-shortened week as traders considered the impact of the sweeping spending bill that Trump is expected to sign into law later in the day. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.6 per cent on Friday, driven in part by losses on spirits makers such as Pernod Ricard and Remy Cointreau after China said it would impose duties of up to 34.9 per cent on brandy from the European Union starting July 5. US S&P 500 futures edged down 0.5 per cent following a 0.8 per cent overnight advance for the cash index to a fresh record closing peak. Wall Street is closed on Friday for the Independence Day holiday. Trump said Washington would start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they would face on exports to the United States, a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual deals before a July 9 deadline when tariffs could rise sharply. Investors were "now just waiting for July 9", said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG, with the market's lack of optimism for trade deals responsible for some of the equity weakness in export-reliant Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea. At the same time, Thursday's jobs data showed "the US economy is holding together better than most people expected, which suggests to me that markets can easily continue to do better" from here, Sycamore said. Investors cheered the surprisingly robust jobs report on Thursday, sending all three of the main US equity indexes climbing in a shortened session. Following the close, the House narrowly approved Trump's signature, 869-page bill, which would add $US3.4 trillion ($A5.2 trillion) to the nation's $US36.2 trillion debt, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Trump said he expected "a couple" more trade agreements after announcing a deal with Vietnam on Wednesday to add to framework agreements with China and Britain as the only successes so far. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that a deal with India was close. However, agreements with Japan and South Korea, once touted by the White House as likely to be among the earliest to be announced, appear to have broken down. The US dollar rallied overnight, taking it up as much as 0.7 per cent versus a basket of major peers after the robust payrolls data saw traders take any expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in July off the table. It ended Thursday with a 0.4 per cent rise. On Friday, the US currency gave back a little of those gains, slumping 0.4 per cent to 144.31 yen and sliding 0.2 per cent to 0.7936 Swiss franc. The euro added 0.2 per cent to $US1.1773, while sterling held steady at $US1.3662. The US Treasury bond market is closed on Friday for the holiday, but 10-year yields rose 4.7 basis points to 4.34 per cent while the two-year yield jumped 9.3 bps to 3.882 per cent. Gold firmed 0.4 per cent to $US3,339 per ounce, on track for a weekly gain as investors again sought refuge in safe-haven assets due to concerns over the US's fiscal position and tariffs. Brent crude futures fell seven cents to $US68.73 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was last seen flat at $US67.02. Stocks have slipped despite record highs for Wall Street overnight as US President Donald Trump's deadline for trade deals looms. The dollar retraced some of Thursday's gains with US markets already shut for the holiday-shortened week as traders considered the impact of the sweeping spending bill that Trump is expected to sign into law later in the day. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.6 per cent on Friday, driven in part by losses on spirits makers such as Pernod Ricard and Remy Cointreau after China said it would impose duties of up to 34.9 per cent on brandy from the European Union starting July 5. US S&P 500 futures edged down 0.5 per cent following a 0.8 per cent overnight advance for the cash index to a fresh record closing peak. Wall Street is closed on Friday for the Independence Day holiday. Trump said Washington would start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they would face on exports to the United States, a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual deals before a July 9 deadline when tariffs could rise sharply. Investors were "now just waiting for July 9", said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG, with the market's lack of optimism for trade deals responsible for some of the equity weakness in export-reliant Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea. At the same time, Thursday's jobs data showed "the US economy is holding together better than most people expected, which suggests to me that markets can easily continue to do better" from here, Sycamore said. Investors cheered the surprisingly robust jobs report on Thursday, sending all three of the main US equity indexes climbing in a shortened session. Following the close, the House narrowly approved Trump's signature, 869-page bill, which would add $US3.4 trillion ($A5.2 trillion) to the nation's $US36.2 trillion debt, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Trump said he expected "a couple" more trade agreements after announcing a deal with Vietnam on Wednesday to add to framework agreements with China and Britain as the only successes so far. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that a deal with India was close. However, agreements with Japan and South Korea, once touted by the White House as likely to be among the earliest to be announced, appear to have broken down. The US dollar rallied overnight, taking it up as much as 0.7 per cent versus a basket of major peers after the robust payrolls data saw traders take any expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in July off the table. It ended Thursday with a 0.4 per cent rise. On Friday, the US currency gave back a little of those gains, slumping 0.4 per cent to 144.31 yen and sliding 0.2 per cent to 0.7936 Swiss franc. The euro added 0.2 per cent to $US1.1773, while sterling held steady at $US1.3662. The US Treasury bond market is closed on Friday for the holiday, but 10-year yields rose 4.7 basis points to 4.34 per cent while the two-year yield jumped 9.3 bps to 3.882 per cent. Gold firmed 0.4 per cent to $US3,339 per ounce, on track for a weekly gain as investors again sought refuge in safe-haven assets due to concerns over the US's fiscal position and tariffs. Brent crude futures fell seven cents to $US68.73 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was last seen flat at $US67.02. Stocks have slipped despite record highs for Wall Street overnight as US President Donald Trump's deadline for trade deals looms. The dollar retraced some of Thursday's gains with US markets already shut for the holiday-shortened week as traders considered the impact of the sweeping spending bill that Trump is expected to sign into law later in the day. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.6 per cent on Friday, driven in part by losses on spirits makers such as Pernod Ricard and Remy Cointreau after China said it would impose duties of up to 34.9 per cent on brandy from the European Union starting July 5. US S&P 500 futures edged down 0.5 per cent following a 0.8 per cent overnight advance for the cash index to a fresh record closing peak. Wall Street is closed on Friday for the Independence Day holiday. Trump said Washington would start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they would face on exports to the United States, a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual deals before a July 9 deadline when tariffs could rise sharply. Investors were "now just waiting for July 9", said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG, with the market's lack of optimism for trade deals responsible for some of the equity weakness in export-reliant Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea. At the same time, Thursday's jobs data showed "the US economy is holding together better than most people expected, which suggests to me that markets can easily continue to do better" from here, Sycamore said. Investors cheered the surprisingly robust jobs report on Thursday, sending all three of the main US equity indexes climbing in a shortened session. Following the close, the House narrowly approved Trump's signature, 869-page bill, which would add $US3.4 trillion ($A5.2 trillion) to the nation's $US36.2 trillion debt, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Trump said he expected "a couple" more trade agreements after announcing a deal with Vietnam on Wednesday to add to framework agreements with China and Britain as the only successes so far. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that a deal with India was close. However, agreements with Japan and South Korea, once touted by the White House as likely to be among the earliest to be announced, appear to have broken down. The US dollar rallied overnight, taking it up as much as 0.7 per cent versus a basket of major peers after the robust payrolls data saw traders take any expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in July off the table. It ended Thursday with a 0.4 per cent rise. On Friday, the US currency gave back a little of those gains, slumping 0.4 per cent to 144.31 yen and sliding 0.2 per cent to 0.7936 Swiss franc. The euro added 0.2 per cent to $US1.1773, while sterling held steady at $US1.3662. The US Treasury bond market is closed on Friday for the holiday, but 10-year yields rose 4.7 basis points to 4.34 per cent while the two-year yield jumped 9.3 bps to 3.882 per cent. Gold firmed 0.4 per cent to $US3,339 per ounce, on track for a weekly gain as investors again sought refuge in safe-haven assets due to concerns over the US's fiscal position and tariffs. Brent crude futures fell seven cents to $US68.73 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was last seen flat at $US67.02. Stocks have slipped despite record highs for Wall Street overnight as US President Donald Trump's deadline for trade deals looms. The dollar retraced some of Thursday's gains with US markets already shut for the holiday-shortened week as traders considered the impact of the sweeping spending bill that Trump is expected to sign into law later in the day. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.6 per cent on Friday, driven in part by losses on spirits makers such as Pernod Ricard and Remy Cointreau after China said it would impose duties of up to 34.9 per cent on brandy from the European Union starting July 5. US S&P 500 futures edged down 0.5 per cent following a 0.8 per cent overnight advance for the cash index to a fresh record closing peak. Wall Street is closed on Friday for the Independence Day holiday. Trump said Washington would start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they would face on exports to the United States, a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual deals before a July 9 deadline when tariffs could rise sharply. Investors were "now just waiting for July 9", said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG, with the market's lack of optimism for trade deals responsible for some of the equity weakness in export-reliant Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea. At the same time, Thursday's jobs data showed "the US economy is holding together better than most people expected, which suggests to me that markets can easily continue to do better" from here, Sycamore said. Investors cheered the surprisingly robust jobs report on Thursday, sending all three of the main US equity indexes climbing in a shortened session. Following the close, the House narrowly approved Trump's signature, 869-page bill, which would add $US3.4 trillion ($A5.2 trillion) to the nation's $US36.2 trillion debt, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Trump said he expected "a couple" more trade agreements after announcing a deal with Vietnam on Wednesday to add to framework agreements with China and Britain as the only successes so far. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that a deal with India was close. However, agreements with Japan and South Korea, once touted by the White House as likely to be among the earliest to be announced, appear to have broken down. The US dollar rallied overnight, taking it up as much as 0.7 per cent versus a basket of major peers after the robust payrolls data saw traders take any expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in July off the table. It ended Thursday with a 0.4 per cent rise. On Friday, the US currency gave back a little of those gains, slumping 0.4 per cent to 144.31 yen and sliding 0.2 per cent to 0.7936 Swiss franc. The euro added 0.2 per cent to $US1.1773, while sterling held steady at $US1.3662. The US Treasury bond market is closed on Friday for the holiday, but 10-year yields rose 4.7 basis points to 4.34 per cent while the two-year yield jumped 9.3 bps to 3.882 per cent. Gold firmed 0.4 per cent to $US3,339 per ounce, on track for a weekly gain as investors again sought refuge in safe-haven assets due to concerns over the US's fiscal position and tariffs. Brent crude futures fell seven cents to $US68.73 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was last seen flat at $US67.02.