OREANDA-NEWS. March 02, 2012. The US indices rose on Thursday. S&P 500 Index added 0.62% while Russell was up by 0.53% with Financials (+1.24%) and Basic Materials (+1.03%) as the leaders. Put/call ratio went down to 1.46 and 90-110% skew was ip to 10.67. Advance/Decline ratio was at 355/136. Initial jobless claims fell to 351K vs consensus forecast of 355K.

ISM Manufacturing Index unexpectedly declined to 52.4 vs consensus forecast of 54.5.

Chain store sales jumped 6.7% in February, indicating that the consumer activity rose in February.

Of 467 S&P 500 Index constituents the EPS of 316 and revenues of 262 companies beat expectations so far. In Europe 112 DJ Stoxx 600 companies topped expectations while 119 missed estimates

Asian indices were mostly up on Friday. Chinese indices lost on average 1.5%. Hang Seng added 0.95%, Japanese Nikkei was up by 0.72%. S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.42%.

PPI indices in the Eurozone will be in focus today, with no significant data from the US.

Earnings season will go on in the US with 1 S&P 500 companies and 7 DJ Stoxx 600 companies to report.