The US markets closed modestly higher on Wednesday, extending its winning streak to three sessions, as investors widely expect the European Central Bank to deliver on monetary stimulus at its key meeting. Federal Reserve officials are starting to reassess their outlook for the economy as global weakness and disappointing data on American consumer spending test their resolve to raise interest rates this year. Fed officials will discuss the outlook when they meet next week, though they aren’t scheduled to release their next set of economic projections until March. San Francisco Fed President John Williams last week stated that he will trim his US estimate because of slower growth abroad. Atlanta’s Dennis Lockhart added that he advocates a cautious approach to rate increases and inflation readings may be pivotal.
On the economy front, the pace of construction started on new US homes rose last month to cap the strongest year in seven. Housing starts rose 4.4% in December to an annual rate of 1.09 million. Starts of single-family homes hit the highest level since early 2008. The government tweaked November’s starts rate to 1.04 million. For all of 2014, there were 1.01 million total housing starts, the highest annual total since 2007 and up almost 9% from 2013. Despite 2014’s progress, total housing starts remain far below an average pace of about 1.5 million over the 20 years leading up to the housing bubble’s 2006 peak.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 39.05 points or 0.22 percent, to 17,554.28, the Nasdaq Composite was up by 12.57 points or 0.27 percent at 4,667.42 and S&P 500 gained 9.57 points or 0.47 percent, to close at 2,032.12.
Indian ADRs closed in green on Wednesday; Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up 1.01%, Tata Motors was up 0.78%, Infosys was up 0.59%, Wipro was up by 0.30% and HDFC Bank was up by 0.08%.
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