The US markets once again made a flat closing on Thursday, extending the lackluster performance seen over the past several sessions, as traders looked ahead to the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday. Employment is expected to increase by 180,000 jobs in April after rising by 98,000 jobs in March. On the economic front, a report released by the Labor Department showed that first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by more than anticipated in the week ended April 29th. The initial jobless claims dropped to 238,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 257,000. A a separate report showing an unexpected drop in labor productivity in the first quarter along with a bigger than expected jump in unit labor costs. The Labor Department said productivity fell by 0.6 percent in the first quarter after surging up by a revised 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter. Economists had expected productivity to come in unchanged. Also, a Commerce Department released a report showing that the trade deficit was little changed in March amid drops in both imports and exports. It said the trade deficit narrowed to $43.7 billion in March from a revised $43.8 billion in February.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 6.43 points or 0.03 percent to 20,951.47, while the Nasdaq added 2.79 points or 0.05 percent to 6,075.34 and the S&P 500 ended up by 1.39 points or 0.1 percent to 2,389.52.
The Indian ADRs made a mixed closing, HDFC Bank was up by 0.01%, ICICI Bank was up by 0.37%, Infy was up by 0.16%, on the other hand Wipro was down by 0.03%, Tata Motors was down by 0.11%.