The US markets edged higher on Tuesday, recouping much of the prior day’s losses as investors found confidence in Dell Inc.’s deal to go private in the biggest leveraged buyout in years. Dell Inc. the personal-computer maker agreed to be taken private in a deal valued at $24.4 billion. Meanwhile, President Obama stated that he still believes the nation should move forward with a broad package for tax reform and spending cuts. President Barack Obama is asking Congress to come up with tens of billions of dollars in short-term spending cuts and tax revenue to delay automatic spending cuts scheduled to kick in March 1. Obama added that if Congress cannot act before the March 1 deadline, lawmakers should at least pass a smaller package to stave off the damaging effects of the across-the-board cuts.
On the economy front, the Institute for Supply Management stated that its index of non-manufacturing companies fell slightly in January, but it remained near a one-year high. The composite index dipped to 55.2% from 55.7% in the prior month. Any number above 50% signals that businesses are expanding. The ISM service-sector index has topped that mark for 37 straight months. Besides, US house prices in December were 8.3% higher than a year earlier, the strongest advance since May 2006, CoreLogic stated. But the data also show the considerable distance to go before the housing market reaches prerecession peaks. The December monthly price gain was 0.4%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 99.22 points or 0.71 percent to 13,979.30, the Nasdaq added 40.41 points or 1.29 percent to 3,171.58 and the S&P 500 was up by 15.58 points or 1.04 percent to 1,511.29.
Indian ADRs closed mostly in green on Tuesday, Infosys was up by 0.69%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up 0.16% and Wipro was up 0.10%. On the other hand, ICICI Bank was down 1.37% and HDFC Bank was down by 0.81%.
