US Stocks rebound on bargain buying

The US stocks rebounded for the first time in four consecutive session on Tuesday, 15 March 2022, with the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P500 indexes all finishing above unchanged line.

The rebound on Wall Street partly reflected bargain hunting, as investors picked up stocks at reduced levels following recent weakness. Market participants also reacted positively to another drop in oil prices and a softer-than-expected reading on producer prices which helped to ease inflation fears among investors, with the focus turning to the Federal Reserve's upcoming policy announcement.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index advanced 599.10 points, or 1.82%, to 33,544.34. The S&P500 index surged 89.34 points, or 2.14%, to 4,262.45. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gained 367.40 points, or 2.92%, to 12,948.62.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE exchange by 2298 to 1037 and 127 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 2931 issues advanced, 1735 issues declined, and 247 issues unchanged.

Total 10 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes advanced, with top gaining industry were information technology (up 3.43%), consumer discretionary (up 3.39%), communication services (up 2.24%), and healthcare (up 1.93%) issues, while bottom performing industry included energy (down 3.7%) issue.

Brent crude settled below $100 a barrel after rocketing higher to more than $139 last week, providing some temporary relief for equity investors that have seen stocks come under pressure this year from surging inflation concerns. Crude for April delivery plunged $6.57 to $96.44 a barrel after tumbling $6.32 to $103.01 a barrel on Monday.

Investors are awaited the Federal Reserve's upcoming policy announcement scheduled for Wednesday. With the market is now fully pricing in a rate hike of at least 25 basis points when the central bank makes its policy statement, market participants awaiting for the accompanying statement for clues about the Fed's projections for the path of rate hikes rest of this year and in coming years to rein in inflation.

ECONOMIC NEWS: The Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand climbed by 0.8% in February after surging by an upwardly revised 1.2% in January. Excluding prices for food, energy and trade services, core producer prices edged up by 0.2% in February following a 0.8% increase in January.

Among Indian ADR, HDFC Bank added 1.6% to $60.11, ICICI Bank added 1.4% to $18.35, WNS Holdings added 0.46% to $83.024, Dr Reddy's Labs added 1.18% to $51.49, Tata Motors added 7.1% to $27.60, and Azure Power Global rose 8.4% to $19.72. Wipro fell 0.26% to $7.67 and INFOSYS sank 2% to $24.19.

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