Extending their previous session’s southward journey, the US markets ended notably lower on Friday on account of global sell-off, with stock markets in Asia and Europe falling sharply on the day. European growth concerns were mainly cited for the weakness. Investors remained worried about the euro-zone economy after the week’s poor figures from Germany and comments from ECB president Mario Draghi that the recovery was running out of steam. On economic front, the US Labor Department released a report before the start of trading showing that another sharp drop in fuel prices contributed to a continued decline in U.S. import prices in the month of September. The Labor Department said its import price index fell by 0.5 percent in September following a revised 0.6 percent drop in August. The street had been expecting import prices to slide by about 0.7 percent. The report also showed that export prices dipped by 0.2 percent in September after falling by 0.5 percent in August. Export prices had been expected to edge down by 0.1 percent.
Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 115.15 points or 0.69 percent to 16,544.10, Nasdaq was down by 102.10 points or 2.33 percent to 4,276.24, while S&P 500 ended lower by 22.08 points or 1.15 percent to 1,906.13. 1,928.21
The Indian ADRs closed mostly in red on Friday; Tata Motors was down by 1.36%, HDFC Bank was down 1.12%, ICICI Bank was down by 0.81% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab was down 0.43%. On the other hand, Infosys was up by 3.41%.