U.S. Stocks Advance as Boehner Vows to Work With Obama (Bloomberg)
U.S. stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rebounding from its biggest drop in five weeks, as House Speaker John Boehner said he expects to keep working on a budget plan with President Barack Obama. “The market continues to be driven by the state of the fiscal cliff negotiations,” said Peter Jankovskis, who helps oversee $3 billion of assets as co-chief investment officer at Lisle, Illinois-based Oakbrook Investments LLC. “That’s what people are keeping an eye on and that’s what is causing the swings in the market.”
Manufacturing Jobs Making a Comeback in Southern U.S. (CNBC)
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s announcement earlier this month that the company will start building Macs closer to home in 2013 was seen as a milestone that could help jump-start U.S. manufacturing. But over the past few years, factories in the American South from the Carolinas to Alabama to Kentucky have already experienced such are birth. “It’s a business climate like you won’t find anywhere else,”says Doug Woodward, an economics professor at the University of South Carolina and incoming president of the North American Regional Science Council, which studies local economies.
Dollar Hits New High against Japan’s Yen (MarketWatch)
The U.S. dollar recovered from earlier declines on Thursday, reclaiming its highest level against the Japanese yen since April 2011 after the Bank of Japan delivered an expected increase in the size of its quantitative-easing program. Overnight, the Bank of Japan said it would add about ¥10 trillion ($119 billion) to its asset-purchase program, citing a “high degree of uncertainty surrounding Japan’s economy.” The central bank’s monetary-policy panel also voted to hold its interest-rate target at zero to 0.1%, as expected.
