The US markets ended mostly higher on Monday amid traders looked ahead to key inflation data later in the week along with reports on retail sales and industrial production as well as the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting. However, the early weakness on markets partly reflected ongoing concerns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates following last week's monthly jobs report. The Labor Department's closely watched report, which was released while the markets were closed for Good Friday, showed employment in the U.S. increased roughly in line with street estimates in the month of March. The report said non-farm payroll employment climbed by 236,000 jobs in March after jumping by an upwardly revised 326,000 jobs in February.
Street had expected employment to rise by about 240,000 jobs compared to the addition of 311,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent in March from 3.6 percent in February. The unemployment rate was expected to be unchanged. On the sectoral front, Steel stocks turned in some of the market's best performances on the day, resulting in a 2.3 percent surge by the NYSE Arca Steel Index. Significant strength also emerged among computer hardware stocks, as reflected by the 2.0 percent jump by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index. Semiconductor, transportation and natural gas stocks also saw notable strength, while weakness remained visible among gold and biotechnology stocks.
Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 101.23 points or 0.3 percent to 33,586.52 and S&P 500 was up by 4.09 points or 0.1 percent to 4,109.11, while Nasdaq lost 3.6 points or 0.03 percent to 12,084.35.
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