S&P 500 Rallies to Highest Level Since April on Housing, Cisco
Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to the highest level since April, as building permits jumped in July to a four-year peak and Cisco Systems Inc.’s earnings beat estimates.
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“We’re in a situation where the economy is growing, jobs are being created, and the consumer seems to be feeling better about spending,” Jason Benowitz, who helps manage $5 billion at Roosevelt Investment Group Inc. in New York, said in a phone interview. “The fact permitting is improving in the housing market suggests the future is going to be there. On the other hand, you have to counterweight the less likely chance of further monetary easing.”
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“Everybody is seeing an emerging good story coming out of Europe,” Greg Peterson, director of investment research at Ballentine Partners LLC in Waltham, Massachusetts, which has about $4 billion in assets, said in a phone interview. “American corporations are in great shape. Their earnings are solid and their cash at hand is excellent. I expect the solid returns to hold for the rest of the year, if not build on it.”
Building permits, a proxy for future construction, rose to an 812,000 pace, the most since August 2008, the Commerce Department said today. A Labor Department report showed jobless claims climbed by 2,000 to 366,000 in the week ended Aug. 11 while the Fed Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index showed manufacturing in the Philadelphia region contracted in August for a fourth consecutive month.
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