Stock rally fades Friday morning
NEW YORK, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A U.S. stock market rally triggered by Thursday's European debt rescue plan skidded to a halt Friday morning as U.S. wage increases were slow in September.
The Commerce Department said incomes rose 0.1 percent August to September, but spending rose 0.6 percent.
While economists are generally encouraged to see spending increase, it is apt to be a short-lived victory if consumers are spending beyond their means.
In early afternoon trading on Wall Street the markets turned mixed, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 1.59 points or 0.01 percent to 12,210.14. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 2.51 points or 0.2 percent to 1,282.08. The Nasdaq composite index shed 8.83 points or 0.32 percent to 2,729.80.
The benchmark 10-year treasury note rose 26/32 to yield 2.309 percent.
The euro fell to $1.4158 from Thursday's $1.4188. Against the yen, the dollar fell to 75.71 yen from Thursday's 75.95 yen.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 1.39 percent, 123.93, to 9,050.47.
Netflix biggest user of Internet bandwidth
LOS GATOS, Calif., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. streaming entertainment service Netflix takes up 32.7 percent of Internet bandwidth worldwide, a study found.
An analysis of 200 Internet service providers in 80 countries by Sandvine Intelligent Broadband Networks found real-time entertainment streaming accounts for 60 percent of peak downstream traffic with Netflix having more than half of that share.
That's up from 50 percent last year, Mashable reported Friday.
Peak time is considered 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Sandvine's analysis also found a shift away from PCs accessing such content, with 55 percent of Internet traffic now being consumed by game consoles, set-top boxes, smart TVs and mobile devices.
Netflix remains a major presence on the Internet despite some recent business setbacks that saw the Los Gatos, Calif.-based company lose 800,000 paid subscribers in the last quarter, Mashable reported.
Japanese jobless rate eases to 4.1 percent
TOKYO, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Japan, recovering from the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster, Friday reported the September jobless rate dropped to 4.1 percent from 4.3 percent in August.
The government said the jobless figures included data from the Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which were hit the hardest by the quake devastation, Kyodo News reported.
It was the second straight month of improvement in the jobless picture.
However, the government said it remains concerned about the sharp appreciation of the yen against other major world currencies. A higher yen makes Japanese exports more expensive, thus adversely affecting the export-dependent Japanese economy.
Spending outpaced incomes in September
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Consumer spending outpaced a 0.1 percent rise in incomes in September, the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday.
Despite two months of flat incomes, spending rose 0.6 percent in September, following a 0.2 percent rise a month ago. Incomes rose 0.1 percent after falling 0.1 percent in August, the department said.
That means savings are decreasing and economists are concerned that consumers cannot keep spending beyond their means.
In September, disposable incomes rose 0.1 percent, a slight increase from August, when disposable incomes were unchanged.
Consumer spending is a critical economic component, often cited as representing 70 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
In September, core prices for consumers, which excludes energy and food prices, was unchanged, after rising 0.2 percent in August.
For all items, prices rose 0.2 percent, compared with 0.3 percent in August.
