US markets closed lower; clocks best October in three years

01 Nov 2013 Evaluate

The US markets fell on Thursday, but managed to gain on monthly basis and made it the best October for stocks across the board in three years. Investors also digested the possibility that the Federal Reserve may taper bond buys sooner than expected. The Fed’s bond buying program has been a catalyst for an epic stock market run this year. A House-Senate budget conference committee kicked off with a disagreement about taxes, underscoring the difficulty ahead for the 29-member panel. Republicans including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan warned Democrats that they won’t accept raising taxes in the talks. The members are negotiating a budget for the rest of the fiscal year that began October 1, and leaders have played down expectations of a farther-reaching grand bargain. The conference committee has a December 13 deadline. The more important date, however, is January 15, when a stopgap budget expires. Without new funding in place, the government would again go partially shut down.

On the economy front, the Chicago purchasing managers index rose to 65.9% in October, to mark the best performance since March 2011. The increase was unexpected. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion. The details were also strong as the production, new orders and order backlog indexes posted double-digit gains. Companies were seemingly unaffected by the government shutdown. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell for the third week in a row, but claims are still above end-of-summer levels even though California stated it fixed computer problems that kept thousands of applications in limbo. Initial claims declined by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000 in the week ended October 26, the Labor Department stated. Claims are seen as good proxy for layoffs, though they reveal less about hiring trends.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 73.01 points or 0.47 percent to 15,545.80, the S&P 500 was down 6.77 points or 0.38 percent to 1,756.54, while Nasdaq dropped 10.91 points or 0.28 percent to 3,919.71.

Indian ADRs closed mixed on Wednesday; Dr. Reddy’s Lab was down 0.74%, Infosys was down 0.66% and Wipro was down 0.09%. On the other hand, HDFC Bank was up 0.60% and ICICI Bank was up 0.20%.

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