After inflation for January came in lower than expected despite the US recovery from recession, US stocks posted mild gains at the end of a strong week on Friday.

According to the Labour Department, consumer prices climbed 0.2 percent. Core prices, which exclude more volatile food and energy costs, surprisingly dropped 0.1 per cent, marking the first monthly decline in the core rate since 1982.

When star golfer Tiger Woods offered his first public apology over a series of extramarital affairs stock trading slowed at 11 a. m. (1600 GMT), reported Bloomberg News.

In response to the Federal Reserve raising the discount interest rate at which it lends directly to commercial banks by 0.25 percentage points to 0.75 percent, stocks had opened the day lower.

The rate change was made after markets closed Thursday and marked the central bank's first monetary policy shift in more than a year, though its more closely watched federal funds inter-bank lending rate was kept at a record low of near 0 percent.

There was a drop in US currency against the euro on Friday to 73.49 euro cents from 74.08 euro cents on Thursday. It also fell against the Japanese currency to 91.58 yen from 91.99 yen a day earlier.This week's raids on current Chief Minister Shibu Soren's aide M. L. Pal, which reportedly unearthed undisclosed assets worth Rs. 65 crore has further cemented the belief that becoming a private secretary to a chief minister is an easy route to riches in Jharkhand.

Vivek, another ex-personal secretary of Soren, still moves around with the chief minister carrying files, though he does not have any official post as Pal continues in his post as the chief minister's personal secretary.

When Koda was being investigated for the Rs. 2,500-crore scam for which he is now in jail awaiting trial, income tax (IT) officials raided house of Harendra Singh, personal secretary of former chief minister Madhu Koda last October and found documents related to investment and assets worth of crores of rupees.

Personal secretaries of other ministers are also not far behind.

After raiding home of Manoj Kumar Singh, an aide of Chandra Prakash Chaudhary, water resources minister in the Koda government last year, IT officials said they had found documents related to investments and assets worth Rs. 12 crore.

An official of the Jharkhand vigilance bureau, on condition of anonymity, told IANS," It seems that personal secretaries are more powerful than senior government officials. It also appears that these aides and ministers connived in corruption and helped both in making fortunes in a short span of time."

Pal used to work in a Coal India Limited (CIL) subsidiary in Ranchi but was sacked because he had got his job with a fake certificate. He became Shibu Soren's personal secretary in August 2008, in an earlier stint by Soren in the chief minister's post. (With Input from Agencies)