US markets slip on weak economic reports

02 May 2013 Evaluate

The US markets slipped on Wednesday, as the US manufacturers barely expanded in April and the industry's rate of growth decelerated to the slowest pace since December, according to the closely followed ISM index. The Institute for Supply Management index fell to 50.7% from 51.3% in March. Reading over 50 indicates more manufacturers are expanding instead of contracting. Besides, private-sector employment growth slowed down in April, hitting the lowest result in seven months as tax hikes and government spending cuts took a toll, Automatic Data Processing Inc. reported. Private employers added 119,000 jobs in April, the weakest gain since September, compared with 131,000 in March,. Separately, construction spending tumbled in March, shedding 1.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual level of $856.7 billion. Despite a solid 0.7% advance in residential construction, nonresidential construction on projects like offices and health-care facilities dropped 2.9% on the month.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve stated that it would keep buying $85 billion in bonds each month, but may cut or increase the program depending on the economy. The Federal Reserve’s policy statement followed a two-day meeting, with the central bank’s open market committee maintaining its monthly bond purchases at $85 billion and leaving its benchmark-interest-rate target unchanged at zero to 0.25%. The Federal Reserve pressed ahead with its $85 billion-a-month asset purchase program, but made few changes in its outlook despite a recent spate of poor economic reports for March. In its policy statement, the Fed stressed that it was flexible, saying it was prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases, commonly known as quantitative easing, depending on labor market or inflation changes. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had previously stated that the Fed was flexible, but this is the first time it was included in the statement. Bernanke added that after starting the year brightly, the economy has started to look sluggish in recent weeks. At the same time, inflation has been softening and remains well below the Fed’s 2% target. The Fed repeated that the economy is expanding at a moderate pace.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 138.85 points or 0.94 percent at 14,701.00, the S&P 500 slipped by 14.87 points or 0.93 percent to 1,582.70 and the Nasdaq dropped 29.66 points or 0.89 percent to 3,299.13.

Indian ADRs closed in red on Wednesday, ICICI Bank was down 0.52%, Tata Motors was down 0.47%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was down 0.45%, Infosys and HDFC Bank were both down by 0.20%.

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