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Indian markets could open mildly higher, in line with mostly higher Asian markets today and sharply positive US markets on Friday.…
U.S. stocks closed sharply higher Friday, following a softer-than-expected inflation report for February. The Nasdaq Composite ended March with its largest quarterly gain since 2020.
For the week, the Dow gained 3.2% while the S&P rose 3.5% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 3.4%. The Dow and S&P 500 each booked its best week since November, according to Dow Jones Market Data. For the month, the Dow rose 1.9%, the S&P 500 increased 3.5% and the Nasdaq jumped 6.7%.
In the first quarter, the S&P 500 advanced 7% and the Dow edged up 0.4%. The Nasdaq soared 16.8% in the first three months of 2023 to notch its largest quarterly percentage rise since the second quarter of 2020.
The personal-consumption-expenditures, or PCE, price index increased 0.3% in February, with inflation slowing to 5% year over year from 5.3% in January, according to a report Friday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Core PCE, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge that excludes energy and food prices, rose 0.3% last month for a year-over-year rate of 4.6%. That’s slightly lower than forecasts from economists polled by the Wall Street Journal and softened from the 4.7% increase seen over the 12 months through January.
Meanwhile, consumer spending edged up 0.2% in February while personal incomes rose 0.3%, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis report Friday. U.S. consumer sentiment fell for the first time in four months in February on concerns of an impending recession, although the impact of the recent banking crisis was muted.
Investors hunting for yield in cash-like investments poured another $66 billion into money-market funds this week, bringing total assets to a record $5.2 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.
Production of eight infrastructure sectors in India recorded an almost flat growth rate of 6 percent in February as against 5.9 percent in the same month last year, according to official data released on Friday. The growth in February is lowest in the last three months. The output of core sectors had increased by 8.9 percent in January 2023 and 7 percent in December 2022. It was 5.7 percent in November 2022. The growth rate of eight infrastructure sectors -- coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity -- stood at 7.8 per cent in April-February this fiscal as against 11.1 per cent during the same period last fiscal.
India's current account deficit (CAD) dropped sharply to $18.2 billion in the October-December period, data released on March 31 by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed. At $18.2 billion, CAD for the last quarter of 2022 is sharply lower than July-September's revised figure of $30.9 billion. The provisional estimate of $36.4 billion for July-September's CAD - which was an all-time high for a quarter - has been revised downwards significantly "due to downward adjustment in Customs data", the RBI said.
The government's fiscal deficit for the first 11 months of 2022-23 widened to Rs 14.54 lakh crore, according to the Controller General of Accounts. At Rs 14.54 lakh crore, the fiscal deficit for April 2022-February 2023 accounted for 82.8 percent of the full-year target for 2022-23. Fiscal deficit in the first 11 months of the last financial year was 82.7 percent of that year's target.
China's factory activity growth stalled in March, weighed by slowing production and weaker global demand and adding to uncertainty about a post-COVID recovery, a private sector survey showed on Monday. The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell to 50.0 in March. That followed February's reading of 51.6, which indicated the first monthly expansion in seven months. The reading far missed expectations of 51.7 in a Reuters poll, and echoed slower growth in an official PMI released on Friday.
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