Snapping their four days losing streak, the US market closed higher on Friday due to a positive reaction to prepared remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. In a speech at a San Francisco Fed conference, Yellen said an interest rate hike may well be warranted later this year but stressed that any increase in interest rates would be gradual. The Fed Chief also suggested that further signs of weakness by inflation measures could impact the Fed's comfortably in raising rates. On economic front, the Commerce Department showing that U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2014 was unrevised. The report said gross domestic product increased by 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter, unchanged from the growth estimated last month. Street had been expecting the pace of GDP growth to be upwardly revised to 2.4 percent, which would still reflect a notable slowdown from the 5.0 percent growth seen in the third quarter. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan released a separate report showing that consumer sentiment deteriorated by less than initially estimated in March. The report showed that the final reading on the consumer sentiment index for March came in at 93.0 compared to the mid-month reading of 91.2. The final reading came in above street expectation of 92.1 but was still below the final February reading of 95.4.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 34.43 points or 0.19 percent to 17,712.66, Nasdaq rose 27.86 points or 0.57 percent to 4,891.22 and S&P 500 was up by 4.87 points or 0.24 percent to 2,061.02.
The Indian ADRs closed mostly in green on Friday; Tata Motors was up 0.66%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up 0.44% and Wipro was up by 0.25%. On the other hand, HDFC Bank was down 0.06% and ICICI Bank was down by 0.04%.