Wall Street boosted by strong housing data
By Kiran Stacey
Published: March 17 2009 14:38 | Last updated: March 17 2009 20:01
US stocks staged a financials-led rally on Tuesday on housing data that was much better than expected.
Figures showing that building had started on many more houses than expected during February gave equities the spur to continue the rising trend of last week.
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Citigroup continued its gains, rising 7.7 per cent to $2.51 and JPMorgan added 8.9 per cent to $25.14.
Builders KB Home and Lennar rose 9.3 per cent to $11.12 and 8.7 per cent to $8.52 respectively.
Producer prices also managed to edge upwards, by 0.1 per cent, allaying fears of deflation and further bolstering consumer companies.
The retail sector as a whole also benefited from an upgrade by Jefferies International for seven companies, including Home Depot and Lowe’s, which rose 6.7 per cent to $21.48 and 6.2 per cent to $16.42 respectively.
Even American Express found some gains in spite of reporting on Monday that higher numbers of people had trouble paying their credit card bills in February. Its shares rose 1.9 per cent to $12.91.
“Delinquency rates will rise with unemployment, but I don’t think losses from the credit card sector is the next big surprise for the market,” said Bruce Harting, at Barclays Capital.
The benchmark S&P 500 index gained 3.2 per cent to 778.12 points.
The Nasdaq Composite index performed better, gaining 4.1 per cent to 1,462.11 points as technology stocks rose, having been heavily sold during the previous session.
Cisco, which on Monday announced it was to make servers for data systems, was named a
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