US markets closed higher for third straight session

04 Mar 2016 Evaluate

The US markets closed higher on Thursday, for a third day of gains, with energy shares maintaining gains after a rebound of oil futures fizzled. Meanwhile, San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams struck an optimistic note that the US economy is powering through headwinds from abroad and faces no tangible risk of recession. Domestic demand is strong enough to keep pushing down unemployment and begin raising inflation back towards the Fed’s 2-percent goal, despite economic weakness abroad. Williams enlightened that he did not understand the recent spate of gloomy warnings about an imminent US recession, adding that the economy had been displaying resilience in the face of developments including the 20 percent surge in the dollar. His bullish assessment comes as a divided body of Fed policymakers prepares for the central bank’s March policy meeting.

On the economy front, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits rose by 6,000 to 278,000 in the last week of February, but the overall pace of layoffs still hovered near post recession lows. The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, fell by 1,750 to 270,250 and hit a three-month low. The monthly average is seen as a more accurate predictor of labor-market trends. The low number of claims, a proxy for layoffs, indicates the US labor market continues to improve nearly seven years into an economy recovery. The US service sector grew more slowly in February. Its index dropped 0.1 point to 53.4%. ISM’s employment sub-gauge fell into contraction, down 2.4 points to 49.7%. But the production gauge rose 3.9 points to 57.8%. ISM’s manufacturing index contracted for the fifth straight month in February, but was still stronger than expected.

Meanwhile, the productivity of US businesses fell at a 2.2% annual pace in the fourth quarter, a smaller decline than previously estimated. The government last month had stated that productivity fell at a 3% rate in the final three months of 2015. But the amount of goods and services produced was actually larger. For all of 2015, US productivity rose a meager 0.7%, just one-third as fast as the post-World War II average. Weak productivity growth has been a staple of a recovery that began in mid-2009. Lower productivity is a sign an economy isn’t performing at its best.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 44.58 points or 0.26 percent to 16,943.90, the Nasdaq was up 4.00 points or 0.09 percent to 4,707.42 while, the S&P 500 gained 6.95 points or 0.35 percent to 1,993.40.

The Indian ADRs closed mostly in green; Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up 2.51%, Tata Motors was up 1.88% and Infosys was up 0.50%. On the other hand, HDFC Bank was down 0.19% and Wipro was down 0.01%.

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