The US market closed higher on Thursday, amid choppy trading with the major averages having advanced in four of the past five sessions. The main indexes moved in tight ranges, however, as worries about a drop in quarterly earnings continued to haunt investors, keeping some on the sidelines. Investors were still digesting the minutes from the latest FOMC meeting, released on Wednesday, which showed several members supported a June rate hike. On the economy front, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits jumped by 14,000 in the first week of April after sinking by 21,000 at the end of March. But the large swings can probably be blamed on the Easter holiday and reveal little about the current health of a US labor market that suddenly seems a bit brittle. Initial jobless claims in the period stretching from March 29 to April 4 climbed to a seasonally adjusted 281,000 from a revised 267,000 in the prior week. The four-week average of jobless claims, meanwhile, dropped by 3,000 to 282,250 and touched the lowest level since June 2000.
Meanwhile, US wholesale inventories rose 0.3% in February as wholesale sales fell 0.2%, perhaps a sign that companies experienced less demand in late winter that could cause them to temporarily scale back production. At February’s sales pace, the inventory-to-sales ratio was 1.29, up from 1.2 a year ago. Inventories of durable goods increased 0.3% in February, while inventories of nondurables rose 0.2%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 56.22 points or 0.31 percent to 17,958.73, Nasdaq was up by 23.75 points or 0.48 percent to 4,974.57 while, S&P 500 was higher by 9.28 points or 0.45 percent to 2,091.18.
The Indian ADRs closed mostly in red on Thursday; Tata Motors was down 0.36%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was down 0.35% and HDFC Bank was down by 0.30%. On the other hand, Wipro was up 0.37% and Infosys was up 0.24%.
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