The US market closed higher on Thursday, recovering some of the losses from the previous two sessions, as turbulence in bond markets in the US and in Europe appeared to subside. A stronger-than-expected weekly jobless-claims report, showing layoffs remain at 15-year lows, set the tone for the Friday’s highly-anticipated nonfarm-payrolls report. The number of people applying for US unemployment benefits remains near a 15-year low, rising a scant 3,000 to 265,000 in the seven days stretching from April 26 to May 2. The average of new claims over the past month, meanwhile, fell by 4,250 to 279,500. That marks the lowest level since May 2000. The four-week average smooth’s out sharp fluctuations in the more volatile weekly report and is seen as a more accurate predictor of labor-market trends. The continuing jobless claims, people already collecting unemployment checks, declined by 28,000 and stood at 2.23 million to the lowest level since November 2000.
Separately, consumers were more wary of using their credit cards in the first quarter than any time in the past four years. Credit card debt was down at a 0.3% rate in the first quarter. That’s the lowest since the first quarter of 2011. The drop comes despite a rebound in March. Credit card debt rose by a seasonally adjusted $4.4 billion in March, or at a 5.9% annual rate. This is the largest percentage increase since last July. It follows two straight 3.3% declines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 82.08 points or 0.46 percent to 17,924.06, Nasdaq was up by 25.91 points or 0.53 percent to 4,945.55 while, S&P 500 was higher by 7.85 points or 0.38 percent to 2,088.00.
The Indian ADRs closed mixed on Thursday; Infosys was up by 0.20%, HDFC Bank was up 0.15% and Wipro was up 0.07%. On the other hand, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was down 0.61% and Tata Motors was down by 0.12%.
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