Wall Street ended on a flat note after moving moderately lower in early trading on Tuesday. Despite the lackluster close, the Dow still ended the session at a new record closing high. The early weakness was partly due to profit taking. However, news out of China helped limit the downside for the markets, as the Bank of China lowered the reserve requirement for banks advancing loans to the rural sector and small businesses by 50bp. Meanwhile, the European market inched higher on Tuesday still reacting positively to the ECB announcement aimed at stimulating the euro zone economy. Gold continued to edge up adding almost $2 to trade at 1261.90.
The US Dollar Index gained around 0.2 percent yesterday on the back of rise in risk aversion in market sentiments in the later part of the trade which led to increase in demand for the low yielding currency. The currency touched an intra-day high of 80.89 and closed at 80.85 on Tuesday.
US JOLTS Job Openings rose by 0.29 million to 4.46 million in April as against a rise of 4.17 million a month ago. Wholesale Inventories remained unchanged at 1.1 percent in the month of April.