U.S. stocks ended sharply higher on Wednesday after a volatile session as the Federal Reserve gave a vote of confidence in the U.S. economy by signaling a December interest rate hike was still on the table.
In a statement following a two-day policy meeting, Fed officials suggested they had become less concerned in recent weeks about turbulent financial markets and uncertain economic developments overseas. They also pointed specifically to the next meeting as a time when they would be assessing whether it was time to raise rates.
Were all struggling to make something out of a non-event, said Ross Koesterich, global chief investment strategist at BlackRock Inc. If I could know one factI would want to know what U.S. earnings are going to look like [next year] rather than whether the fed hikes a quarter point in December.
Shares of financial companies, especially banks, rose sharply. Financial stocks in the S&P 500 were up 2.4%, leading the index higher. The KBW Nasdaq Bank index gained 3.5% and Bank of America shares jumped 5.4%. Utilities, considered the bond proxies of the stock market because they pay out high dividends, fell 1.1%.
On Wednesday, National Bank of Greece (ADR) (NYSE:NBG)s shares inclined 2.81% to $0.879.
National Bank of Greece (ADR) (NBG) has beta value of 2.91. The company has the market capitalization of $3.01 billion. Return on assets ratio of the company was -0.20% while its return on equity ratio was -3.10%. ATR value of company was 0.07 while stock volatility for week was 8.98% while for month was 8.84%. Debt to equity ratio of the company was 0.48.
National Bank of Greece S.A. is a commercial bank. The Bank offers its customers a range of integrated financial services, including corporate and investment banking; retail banking (including mortgage lending); leasing and factoring; stock brokerage, asset management and venture capital; insurance; and real estate and consulting services.
Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT)s shares gained 1.66% to $16.54.
Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT) is currently valued at $19.53 billion. The company has 1.20 billion shares outstanding and 87.50% shares of the company were owned by institutional investors. The company has 2.08 value in price to sale ratio while price to book ratio was recorded as 2.53. The company exchanged hands with 13.54 million shares as compared to its average daily volume of 17.79 million shares. It beta stands at 1.89.
Applied Materials, Inc. (Applied) provides manufacturing equipment, services and software to the global semiconductor, flat panel display, solar photovoltaic (PV) and related industries.
At the end of Wednesday’s trade, Itau Unibanco Holding SA (ADR) (NYSE:ITUB)s shares surged 1.04% to $6.80, as Brazils highest interest rates in nine years are boosting returns on government bonds, which is assisting the financial services company navigate through the countrys economic crisis, Bloomberg reports.
Banks biggest holdings are government bonds, which generate higher returns when interest rates rise. And there is the liquidity effect as credit demand is slowing. Banks are piling up more cash in government bonds as loans mature, Rodrigo Martin, an analyst at Quantitas told Bloomberg.
For the first half of this year banking industry revenue from proprietary trading and asset liability, which comprises gains from government bonds, popped by 30%, Bloomberg noted.
Itau Unibanco Holding SA (ADR) (ITUB) offered 9.90% EPS for prior five years. The company has 23.90% return on equity value while its ROI ratio was 7.40%. The company has $40.03 billion market capitalizations and the institutional ownership was 27.90%. Its price to book ratio was 1.63. Volatility of the stock was 3.65% for the week while for the month booked as 3.76%.
Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. (Itau Unibanco Holding) is a holding company. The Company provides a range of financial products and services to individual and corporate clients in Brazil.
