The US markets closed lower on Monday, after touching record highs, dragged down by a sharp drop in health-care stocks, which outweighed a rise in energy shares that accompanied strong gains for crude-oil futures. Broader markets pulled back despite the fact that more stocks on the NYSE were advancing than declining. The dollar rose against its major rivals, drawing continued support from last week’s strong US jobs report. As of Friday, aggregate earnings for the S&P 500 showed a decline of 2.3% year-over-year - still better than the 5.2% fall expected at the beginning of the earnings season. Meanwhile, even as economic fundamentals show signs of slow improvement, an interest-rate hike by the Fed could come later this year. Last week, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari stated that low inflation allows the Federal Reserve to keep US interest rates lower for longer in order to boost the economy and jobs. Kashkari isn’t a member this year of Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, which has kept rates near zero since the financial crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 14.24 points or 0.08 percent to 18,529.29, Nasdaq dropped 7.98 points or 0.15 percent to 5,213.14, while S&P 500 was down 1.98 points or 0.09 percent to 2,180.89.
The Indian ADRs closed mostly in red; HDFC Bank was down 0.05%, ICICI Bank was down 0.05% and Wipro was down by 0.02%. On the other hand, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up 0.64% and Infosys was up 0.02%.