The US markets continued their rally on Friday to end the week with gains of over 2%. Dow and S&P 500 posted their sixth-straight day of gains on better than expected jobs data, adding to optimism about the economy. The Labor Department reported that the US added 236,000 jobs in February, while unemployment rate tumbled to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008. The central bank has said that it will maintain its low interest rate policy at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent and inflation rises to 2.5 percent. In a separate report the Commerce Department said that wholesale inventories rose 1.2 percent in January.
There were some upbeat economic reports from overseas that too supported the markets; Japan's Cabinet Office reported that the Japanese economy stabilized in the fourth quarter after seeing modest contractions in the two previous quarters. While, the Chinese General Administration of Customs showed an unexpected trade surplus in the month of February.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 67.58 points or 0.47 percent to 14,397.07, the Nasdaq was up by 12.28 points or 0.38 percent to 3,244.37 and the S&P 500 advanced by 6.92 points or 0.45 percent to 1,551.18.
Indian ADRs ended in green on Friday, HDFC Bank was up by 1%, ICICI Bank was up 0.70%, Infy was up by 0.37% and Tata Motors was up by 0.28%.
