Wall Street mostly lower at the opening bell

The main indices on Wall Street began Friday’s session on a mixed footing, although the overall trend of the market appeared to be pointing lower in early deals. Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.11% at 32,521, however the S&P 500 was down 0.39% at 3,923 while the Nasdaq dropped 1.35% to 13,217. Traders seem to be struggling to maintain momentum following yesterday’s strong session, with optimism following the approval of new US stimulus showing signs of petering out towards the end of the week. The latest US producer prices for February, which was in line with forecasts of 0.5% growth, also failed to provide much excitement. 8:00am: Wall Street points to weaker open Futures are pointing at a soft open on Wall Street on Friday after the Dow closed Thursday’s session 1.5% higher at 32,297.02. It was a record number for the index, which was lifted by Democrats in the House of Representatives passing Joe Biden’s US$1.9trn coronavirus (COVID-19) relief package. The approval also pushed government bond yields up, with the US 10-year surpassing the 1.6% level again, because of prospects of stronger recovery and inflation. “This should be – and so far has been – good for the US dollar and bad news for gold and technology shares,” commented Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at ThinkMarkets. “Rising bond yields points to higher inflation, requiring tighter monetary policy from the Fed and other central banks. Investors worry that yields would rise further. If correct, this should be particularly bad for stocks of high-flying growth and technology stocks, as it makes their future cash flows less worthy.” In fact, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is called 1.4% lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average forecast to open flat and the S&P 500 down 0.4%. Four things to watch for on Friday: Fridays entries into the earnings diary include biotech Sorrento Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRNE), fashion retailer Buckle Inc (NYSE:BKE) and Chinese electric car and battery maker Kandi Technologies Group Inc (NASDAQ:KNDI) Shares in Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) could attract some attention after the electric vehicle maker reported a fire at its factory in California Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) may also get a look in after the streaming giant announced plans to crack down on password sharing users of its platform On the macro front, US producer prices for February will likely draw some attention as well as Michigan consumer sentiment data for March