US markets closed lower on Monday

01 Mar 2016 Evaluate

The US markets closed lower on Monday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posting three straight monthly declines for the first time since 2011, while the Dow industrials bucked the trend to post their first monthly gain since November. The market sold off in the final two hours of a volatile session, as investors took a defensive posture, bidding up utility stocks while selling energy and health-care shares even as crude-oil futures ended sharply higher. On the economy front, a gauge of Chicago-area economic activity retreated below 50, indicating a contraction in February after looking strong a month earlier. The Chicago PMI fell 8 points to 47.6. In January, the index had increased 12.7 points to 55.6, the highest reading in a year. In February, four of five components declined, led by an 18.5-point drop in production to 44 and a 7.1-point decline in new orders to 51.7.The employment index slid to 45.2, its lowest reading since 2009. Inventories contracted for the fourth straight month. In addition to Chicago, the Philly Fed and Empire State regional manufacturing indexes remained in contraction territory in February.

Meanwhile, a gauge of pending home sales dipped 2.5% in January, the National Association of Realtors reported. NAR’s monthly gauge fell to 106.0 from an upwardly-revised 108.7 in December. It was the 17th straight month in which the index has been higher compared to a year ago, but that gain was only 1.4% in January. The pending home sales index showed mixed regional results in January. Sales of existing homes surged last month but prices also jumped, by 8.2%. NAR forecasts such sales will rise 2.5% over the 2015 tally in 2016, to 5.38 million.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 123.47 points or 0.74 percent to 16,516.50, the Nasdaq was down 32.52 points or 0.71 percent to 4,557.95 while, the S&P 500 dropped 15.82 points or 0.81 percent to 1,932.23.

The Indian ADRs closed mixed; Tata Motors was down 0.12%, Wipro was down 0.12% and Infosys was down 0.07%. On the other hand, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up 0.73% and ICICI Bank was up 0.36%.

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