While you were sleeping.. US stocks mostly rose on Wednesday after comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen signalled continued support for the economy, but the Nasdaq fell for a second session as momentum names sold off. On the Nasdaq, Yahoo! Inc fell 6.6 per cent after Alibaba Group filed for an initial public offering that valued the Chinese e-commerce company well below analysts consensus estimate. Alibabas valuation had disappointed many Yahoo investors as Yahoo holds a 22.6 per cent stake in Alibaba, of which it must sell more than a third through the IPO. Microblogging site Twitter saw its stock again a target of short sellers, sinking 4 per cent to mark the third straight day of record lows. Earlier it had given up 8 per cent on the back of losses of close to 18 per cent yesterday. After declining in the morning session, the Dow and the S&P 500 however moved into positive territory after Janet Yellen said the US economy was still in need of lots of support, given the considerable slack in the labour market in remarks to the congressional Joint Economic Committee. She also cited the housing sector and geopolitical tensions as issues of concern. Also in the latest snapshot of the U.S. economy, the Labour Department said that U.S. nonfarm productivity fell at its fastest pace in a year in the first quarter because of severe weather. That led to the largest gain in unit labour costs in more than a year. Productivity fell at a 1.7 percent annual rate in the quarter, the Labour Department said. Over at the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was pulling troops back from the border, and he urged Ukrainian separatists to call off a referendum on sovereignty they hoped to hold on Sunday. Despite NATO officials saying they saw no immediate sign that Russian forces had pulled back, Putin said “We have pulled them back. Today they are not at the Ukrainian border but in places of regular exercises, at training grounds.”
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 23:29:06 +0000