US markets ended the Friday's trade with decent gains, as traders took some encouragement with activity in the US manufacturing sector registering a larger-than-expected expansion to a 9-month high in July. In a report, market research group Markit said that its flash manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to 52.9 in July from the prior month’s final reading of 51.3. Traders may also have been looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's two-day monetary policy meeting scheduled for next week. The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged as officials wait to see the fallout from Britain's vote to leave the European Union. The central bank's accompanying statement is still likely to be in focus, as investors attempt to gauge the outlook for the next rate hike.
On the sectoral front, trucking stocks showed a substantial move to the upside on the day, driving the Dow Jones Trucking Index up by 2.1 percent. Considerable strength was also visible among airline stocks, as reflected by the 1.8 percent gain posted by the NYSE Arca Airline Index. The index regained some ground after moving notably lower over the three previous sessions. Further, Railroad, telecom, and utilities stocks also saw significant strength on the day, moving higher along with most of the other major sectors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained by 53.62 points or 0.29 percent to 18,570.85, Nasdaq added 26.26 points or 0.52 percent to 5,100.16 and S&P 500 was up by 9.86 points or 0.46 percent to 2,175.03.
The Indian ADRs closed mixed; Tata Motors gained 0.53%, HDFC Bank rose 0.38% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up by 0.01%. On the other hand, Wipro slipped 0.08%, Infosys dipped 0.05% and ICICI Bank was down by 0.02%.