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Stocks closed higher Wednesday as bargain hunters swooped in following a lengthy stretch of losses for the major indexes.
Today's positive price action came as the 10-year Treasury yield eased back from yesterday's two-month high, finishing down 6.7 basis points at 3.273%. A basis point is one-one hundredth of a percentage point.
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And the buying persisted even after Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard said in an early afternoon speech that the central bank is "in this for as long as it takes to get inflation down." The Fed will meet later this month, with the market largely pricing in the probability of a third straight 75 basis-point rate hike.
Nearly all sectors finished higher, with utilities ( 3.1%) and consumer discretionary stocks ( 3.1%) leading the charge. The one outlier was energy, which slumped 1.2% as U.S. crude futures tumbled 5.7% to $81.94 per barrel - their lowest close since Jan. 11, according to Dow Jones Market Data - amid expectations of slowing global economic growth. "Oil's breakdown today is a bigger shot across the bow, pointing to further struggles ahead in our opinion," says Dan Wantrobski, technical strategist and associate director of research at Janney Montgomery Scott. "We believe the commodity can break below $80 from here, targeting the mid-$70s range in the weeks ahead."
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As for the major indexes, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.1% to 11,791 - snapping its seven-day losing streak, its longest one since 2016. The S&P 5
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SIEGFRIED HECKER, a professor who used to run America's nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos, recalls the most recent of the seven trips he has made to North Korea, in 2010. His hosts were showing off their sprawling Yongbyon atomic-energy complex. With a blend of shyness and defiance, they displayed an astonishing spectacle: a hall with 2,000 brand-new centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, either for electricity or nuclear bombs.
Apparently assembled in another, unsuspected site, they had appeared in Yongbyon since Mr Hecker's previous trip in 2008. This implied that, besides its existing plutonium-based technology, the country could make nuclear bombs from uranium. He was also shown the beginnings of a light-water reactor that could produce more plutonium. The message: "We have more nuclear capacity than you think, and you'll never know how much…"
North Korea's arsenal has since grown. Estimates range from 20 to 60 warheads, and its latest test was apparently of a...Continue reading
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