Recap: Week Ending September 13, 2013
Equities broke into the second week of September with gains which have not been seen for weeks. This past week the Dow Jones Industrials clocked in the largest gain, rising for a total of over 3%. Other US equities stayed positive, but did not fair as well with the S&P 500 rising 1.879% and the NASDAQ 100 moving 1.025% to the upside. Many believe that the pop in stocks was mainly brought upon by major indices entering oversold levels, which incurred from the August sell off. Out of the three major US equity indexes, the Dow Jones fell the hardest in August and took the longest to rebound. With this being said, all indexes appear to be on the same level after the Dow’s major rally this past week. Meanwhile, in Canada the TSX lagged this past week following major commodity market moving news. The TSX, which has a strong presence of commodities such as gold and energy companies, fell as their natural resources fell hard. News out of Syria has suddenly taken a pause after the US decided to delay a vote regarding an attack on Syria, following news from Russia that they will assist Syria in controlling in chemical weapons. With this news on the radar, gold, which is a risk off investment, slid heavily as the possibility of an attack continues to be downplayed. This week gold saw its biggest decline in over 8 weeks falling from a high just below the $1400 mark to settle down at $1327. Like gold, Crude Oil sold off on the week to closing at $108.60, lacking the presence of buyers to push the commodity higher. As news out of Syria continues to slow, it is expected that these commodities, even thought they are approaching oversold levels, will continue to slowly push lower.
This past Wednesday Apple released their new iPhone line up. The product release, unlike previous iPhone releases, included the launch of two new phones, the 5C as well as the 5S. Both devices will be similar, however; the 5S has a faster processor, finger scanner as well as a higher quality build compared with the 5C which is targeted towards the lower end of the smart phone market. One of the biggest changes to the iPhone line is the introduction of colored devices. The 5C will be available to consumers in 5 bright colors; while the higher end 5S will only be offered in 3 colors. Despite the introduction of new colors and the finger scanner, both analysts and investors were not impressed, pushing Apple’s share price down, which saw its biggest drop in almost five months. The new features do not appear to be anything unique and impressive, adding to theories that Apple has lost its innovative touch following the death of Steve Jobs. Despite this, no information about the rumored iWatch was released at this week’s press conference.
This past week the Wall Street Journal, which has ownership in the Dow Jones & Company, changed its components. The change included dropping Bank of America, Alcoa, and Hewlett-Packard for Visa, Nike and Goldman Sachs.
