Big tech shares edged higher on Friday, helping a benchmark world stock index post a sixth consecutive closing high, after a weak U.S. jobs report likely pushed back the timetable for when the Federal Reserve reduces its massive support of the economy.
Labor Department data that showed wages increasing more than expected in August raised inflation fears and led longer-dated Treasury yields to jump, while gold advanced to a more than a 2-1/2-month high as the dollar eased.
MSCI’s all-country world index, which is heavily weighted to big U.S. tech, notched a new record as Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Google parent Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc advanced. The tech gains also helped the Nasdaq set a fresh closing high.
The Dow Industrials and S&P 500 fell as slower U.S. jobs growth raised questions about the pace of the recovery. But a Fed taper announcement is off the table in September, said Lee Ferridge, North American head of multi-asset strategy at State Street Global Markets.
“Support from the Fed for these markets is going to persist. Taper starts later rather than sooner. That’s positive for equities, that’s positive for risk,” he said.
“As long as the Fed is printing, then that means that the equity markets are supported by the whole QE liquidity argument,” Ferridge said.
