Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Stocks are rallying again on Friday, and Wall Street is heading for just its second winning week in the last 12 to provide a bit of relief from its brutal sell-off this year.
The S&P 500 was 2.3% higher in midday trading. It's on pace for a 5.7% gain for the week, though it's still close to 20% below its record set early this year and hasn't recouped its loss from the prior week, which was its worst since the early 2020 coronavirus crash.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 629 points, or 2.1%, at 31,306, as of 12:30 p.m. eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.3% higher.
Stocks have climbed this week as pressure from rising Treasury yields lets up somewhat and investors speculate the U.S. Federal Reserve may not have to be as aggressive about raising interest rates as earlier thought.
It's a reprieve from Wall Street's tumble through most of the year, caused by the Fed's and other central banks' slamming into reverse on the tremendous support fed into markets through the pandemic. In hopes of beating down punishingly high inflation, central banks have raised interest rates and made other moves that hurt prices for investments and threaten to slow the economy enough to cause a recession. More such moves are sure to come.
Parts of the U.S. economy are still red-hot, particularly the jobs market, but some discouraging signals have emerged recently. A report on Friday confirmed sentiment among consumers sank to its lowest point since the University of Michigan began keeping records, hurt in particular by high inflation. Another lowlight this week suggested the U.S. manufacturing and services sectors aren't as strong as economists thought.
Such weakening data raise worries about the strength of the economy. But they also can be good for financial markets, as paradoxical as that may seem.
They could mean less upward pressure on inflation, which would ultimately mean the Federal Reserve doesn't have to raise rates so aggressively. And interest rates drive trading for everything from stocks to cryptocurrencies.
One nugget in the consumer sentiment report could carry particular weight for markets. It showed consumers' expectations for inflation over the long run moderated to 3.1% from a mid-month reading of 3.3%. That's crucial for the Fed because expectations for higher inflation in the future can trigger buying activity that inflames inflation further in a self-fulfilling, vicious cycle.
Last week, the Fed hiked its key short-term rate by the biggest margin in decades and said another such increases could be coming, though they wouldn't be common.
Over the last week, investors have been modestly ratcheting back their expectations for how high the Fed will hike interest rates into early next year.
That's helped yields in the Treasury market recede. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to move with expectations for the Fed's actions, has dropped back to 3.05% from more than 3.40% in the middle of last week.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which forms the bedrock for the world's financial system, rose to 3.12% on Friday from 3.07% late Thursday. But it also has moderated after hitting 3.48% last week.
It started the year just a bit above 1.50%.
A separate economic report on Friday showed sales of new homes unexpectedly accelerated last month. But the trend for housing has largely been lower because it's at the leading edge of the Fed's hikes.
More expensive mortgage rates are hurting the industry, and a separate report earlier this week showed sales of previously occupied homes slowed last month.
Rising mortgage rates pushed LendingTree, the online marketplace that helps people find mortgages and other loans, to warn Friday that it expects to report weaker revenue for the second quarter than earlier forecast. Its stock fell 8.8%.
The vast majority of Wall Street was heading the opposite direction. More than 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 were rising.
Cruise operator Carnival was close to the front of the pack, steaming nearly 11% higher. It reported weaker results for its most recent quarter than analysts expected, but it also said that booking trends are improving.
FedEx rose 7% after giving a forecast for earnings this upcoming fiscal year that topped some analysts' expectations.
Other markets around the world also rallied Friday.
London's FTSE 100 added 2.7%, Germany's DAX returned 1.6% and France's CAC 40 jumped 3.2%.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 added 1.2% as a report showed inflation in Japan remained at 2.1% in May. After stripping out costs for energy and fresh food, though, underlying inflation remained at 0.8%. And Japan's central bank is unlikely to follow the example of the Fed and other central banks in raising interest rates, analysts said.
------
AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unravelled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.