The week ahead | Calamatta Cuschieri

U.S. equity benchmarks on Friday surged to session highs, finishing the day squarely in record territory and booking a fourth straight weekly advance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 223.92 points or 0.9%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.18% climbed about 33.62 points, or 1.2%, to an all-time high at 2,872.87 on the back of a 2.2% gain in the health-care sector, and a 1.6% rally in technology, viewed as the growth areas of the market. All three benchmarks finished at their best levels of the day, suggesting that investors continue to rush into equities amid an almost relentless ascent for assets perceived as risky despite rising concerns about lofty valuations. The week ahead will see some technology giants report including Alibaba Group, Facebook, Apple and Amazon while the Chair of Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen will hold her final meeting about interest rate. On Tuesday, the US Government will deliver the First State of Union.

Intel stock rose 10%: no financial impact from Meltdown and Spectre

Intel Corporation known as a company engaged in designing and manufacturing products and technologies, such as the cloud, last Thursday posted blowout earning and also reported December quarter revenue ahead of consensus estimates. The stock price reached its highest since 2000 and shares rose 10%.

The chip giant also announced that two flaws named Meltdown and Spectre, discovered by three groups of researchers earlier this month would not have any financial impact. In addition, the company revealed that it is working on the hardware approach to mitigate against potential attacks using the vulnerabilities, while keeping disclosure general and bland. In order to protect the company’s result from security exploits, Intel upgraded its risk factor, even though the chip security flaws didn’t have any impact on cost products. An analyst believes that the company’s diversification toward data-centric businesses that accounted for the 47% of Intel revenue and an increase in operational efficiencies markets, are driving the company toward faster longer-term revenue growth at stronger profitability. At least 20 analysts boosted their target price.

Intel’s outlook for the first quarter was in line with the expectations.

Intel shares were up 33% over the last twelve months while index like S&P 500 rose 24%.

Coincheck will repay $425 million lost due to a biggest ever thieves

Tokyo based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck said on Sunday it would return about 46.3 billion yen ($425 million) of the virtual money it lost to hackers two days ago in one of the biggest-ever thefts of digital money.

That amounts to nearly 90% of the 58 billion yen worth of NEM coins the company lost in an attack that forced it to suspend on Friday withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin.

Coincheck said, in a statement, that it would repay the roughly 260,000 owners of NEM coins in Japanese yen, though it was still working on timing and method.

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) sent a notice to the country's roughly 30 firms that operate virtual currency exchanges to warn of further possible cyber-attacks, urging them to step up security.

Japan started to require cryptocurrency exchange operators to register with the government only in April 2017. Pre-existing operators such as Coincheck have been allowed to continue offering services while awaiting approval. Coincheck's application, submitted in September, is still pending.

In 2014, Mt. Gox, a bitcoin exchanged based in Tokyo, which once handled 80% of the world's bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy after losing around half a billion dollars’ worth of bitcoins. More recently, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Youbit, last month shut down and filed for bankruptcy after being hacked twice last year.

In Davos last week, at the World leaders meeting fresh warnings were issued about the dangers of cryptocurrencies, with the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin expressing his concern about the money being used for illicit activity.

Disclaimer

This article was issued by Linda De Luca, Trader at Calamatta Cuschieri. For more information visit, www.cc.com.mt. The information, view and opinions provided in this article is being provided solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice, advice concerning particular investments or investment decisions, or tax or legal advice. Calamatta Cuschieri Investment Services Ltd has not verified and consequently neither warrants the accuracy nor the veracity of any information, views or opinions appearing on this website.