The US market closed lower on Monday, in thinly traded session giving back some of the gains from Friday’s post-jobs rally. Trading activity on Wall Street was lower than usual, with the total composite volume remaining the fifth lowest this year. Friday’s jobs report supported the view that the US economy is on solid footing, but the data may not be strong enough to move up the timing of the first rate hike by the Federal Reserve in nearly a decade. The Fed’s very own multi-factor Labor Market Conditions Index fell in April by the most since June 2012. The Labor market has only fallen more than this once since the great recession.
Meanwhile, president of the San Francisco Fed John Williams stated that the first quarter wasn’t as weak as it appears. Williams pointed to an alternate measure of GDP, known as GDP plus, showing growth at a 1.7% annual rate in the first quarter. This is much stronger pace of growth that the standard measure of GDP released late last month by the Commerce Department, which showed a paltry 0.2% growth rate. Willams called the GDPplus a cleaner, less noisy measure. He added that it was one of several pieces of evidence giving him confidence that the weak first quarter, as measured by standard GDP was an aberration and not a signal of a renewed downturn in activity.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 85.94 points or 0.47 percent to 18,105.17, Nasdaq was down by 9.98 points or 0.20 percent to 4,993.57 while, S&P 500 was lower by 10.77 points or 0.51 percent to 2,105.33.
The Indian ADRs closed mostly in red on Monday; Tata Motors was down by 0.59%, HDFC Bank was down 0.40%, and Wipro was down 0.21%. On the other hand, Infosys was up 0.08% and ICICI Bank was up 0.06%.