HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank finish on firm note.

(From Business Line)

Byline: K.S. Badri Narayanan

THE US stock markets ended the week on a mixed note. Old economy stocks such as Alcoa Inc, the world largest aluminium maker, and International Paper Co, paper and lumber major, pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 higher on expectations that US manufacturing activity will pick up.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 per cent last week and the Dow added 0.8 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite Index, however, slipped 1.1 per cent on concern that profit expectations of IT majors may be too high; Intel Corp had announced that its fourth-quarter sales would increase but that fell short of some analysts' …