US markets gain on encouraging economic report

05 Jan 2013 Evaluate

The US markets rose on Friday, posting a strong weekly gains, with S&P 500 index closing at a five-year high since December 2007, after Congress passed crucial budget legislation and as government data showed employers added more workers while the jobless rate held at a level that’s unlikely to hasten the end of Federal Reserve stimulus. Though the biggest gains for the market came at the start of the week, after Washington lawmakers struck a deal that averted the fiscal cliff but markets had good reason to be disgusted by the behavior of politicians arguing over the so-called fiscal cliff, dragging the situation to the nervous, critical last hours before reaching a half-hearted, half-effective conclusion.

On the economy front, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls rose by 155,000 in December and the jobless rate stood at 7.8%, suggesting the budget battle in Washington over the fiscal cliff didn’t do much damage to the economy. The pace of hiring in December almost perfectly matched the level of job growth over the past two years. The US has added an average of 153,000 jobs each month in both 2011 and 2012, the Labor Department stated. Besides, a separate report showed that service-sector growth accelerated in December, with the Institute for Supply Management’s services-sector index rising to 56.1% from 54.7% in November.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 43.85 points or 0.33 percent to 13,435.20, the Nasdaq added 1.09 points or 0.04 percent to 3,101.66 and the S&P 500 closed higher by 7.10 points or 0.49 percent to 1,466.47.

Indian ADRs closed mostly in red on Friday, Infosys was down 0.79%, Tata Motors was down by 0.46% and Dr Reddy’s lab was down 0.23%. On the other hand, HDFC Bank was up 0.21% and ICICI Bank was up 0.05%.

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