Page 25 - ARUBA TODAY

BUSINESS A25
Wednesday 10 January 2018

S&P 500 keeps climbing as calm continues to reign for stocks

By STAN CHOE Trader Michael Milano, right, works with specialists Karan Virdi, center, and David Haubner, there’s something oner-
AP Business Writer ous coming, just because
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks background, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. it would be different from
pushed further into record what everyone is talking
territory Tuesday, and the (AP Photo/Richard Drew) about,” said Nate Thooft,
Standard & Poor’s 500 in- senior portfolio manager
dex’s immaculate start to small-cap stocks slipped tors bask in a global econ- The powerful combination at Manulife Asset Manage-
the year extended to a ment. But he expects the
sixth day. 1.71, or 0.1 percent, to omy that’s strengthening has kept markets marching market to continue gliding
Health care stocks and higher as the economy and
banks led the way, as calm 1,560.10. in sync. Corporate profits higher, even though stock corporate profits strength-
continues to reign over en. Health care stocks rose
markets around the world. They’re the latest steps are also on the upswing, prices have grown to be- 1.1 percent for the biggest
The strong gains overshad- gain among the 11 sectors
owed weakness for divi- higher for stocks, which and Washington’s recently come more expensive than that make up the S&P 500.
dend-paying stocks and Boston Scientific was at
other areas of the market have been rising at a re- approved tax cut should usual, relative to corporate the front of the pack after
hurt by rising interest rates it gave preliminary results
after 10-year Treasury yields markably steady pace for goose earnings even high- profits. for its revenue last quarter
hit their highest level since that were stronger than
March. more than a year as inves- er. “I would like to say that Wall Street was expecting.
The S&P 500 rose 3.58 The medical device com-
points, or 0.1 percent, to pany’s shares rose $2.15, or
2,751.29 to equal its longest 8.3 percent, to $27.96.
winning streak leading off a Illumina likewise report-
year since 2010. ed preliminary results for
The Dow Jones industrial fourth-quarter revenue that
average rose 102.80 points, topped analysts’ expecta-
or 0.4 percent, to 25,385.80, tions. Shares of the compa-
the Nasdaq composite ny, which makes tools for
gained 6.19 points, or 0.1 genetic analysis, jumped
percent, to 7,163.58 and $15.74, or 6.9 percent, to
the Russell 2000 index of $242.80.q

Samsung’s profit jumps 64 percent to record high on chips

By YOUKYUNG LEE ees. Fourth-quarter sales did not give a quarterly net eting demand and pric- Samsung controls about
rose 24 percent to 66 trillion profit or breakdown figures es of memory chips. The half of the world’s DRAM
AP Technology Writer won ($61.8 billion), also at a for each businesses. The world’s demand for more memory chips that tempo-
record high. company is due to disclose storage for pictures, vid- rarily hold data and help
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For the entire year, Sam- more details of its finan- eos, files and other digital computers run many pro-
sung’s operating income cial performance later this data in their gadgets and grams at the same time,
Samsung Electronics said stood at 53.6 trillion won month. servers, as well as demand and about one third of the
($50.2 billion), a 83-percent What drove Samsung’s for more computing pow- world’s NAND chips, which
its October-December op- surge from 2016, on sales monstrous year was the er to run many programs store files. It was the biggest
of 239.6 trillion won ($224.2 company’s semiconductor faster, pushed up demand beneficiary of the jump in
erating profit jumped 64 billion), up 19 percent from division, which has been for memory chips that are prices of those memory
the previous year. Samsung cashing in on the skyrock- dominated by Samsung. chips in 2017.q
percent to a record high,

capping off 2017 with the

biggest annual operating

income and sales in its his-

tory thanks to the block-

buster semiconductor busi-

ness.

In its earnings preview

Tuesday, the South Korean

company put its operat-

ing profit at 15.1 trillion won

($ 14.1 billion) for the final

three months of last year,

compared with 9.2 trillion

won a year earlier.

The result, however, missed

expectations. Analysts

polled by financial data

firm FactSet expected

16.2 trillion won in operat-

ing profit. Analysts lowered

their views on Samsung last

month, citing the one-time

bonuses to employees and

the appreciation of the lo-

cal currency against the

U.S. dollar. Nomura esti-

mates that Samsung spent

700 billion won ($655 mil-

lion) as bonuses to employ-