US open: Stocks decline amid lack of data on Black Friday

US equities declined early on Friday, as Wall Street failed to shrug off a sharp selloff in Chinese equities, while retailers were polarising the attention on Black Friday.

Shortly after 1500 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 59 points down to 17,754.20, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were two points lower and one point higher respectively.

“The Dow Jones obviously didn’t have a good Thanksgiving, not that there was much to spark the index’s decline, the US providing nothing of any worth this afternoon,” said Spreadex’s financial analyst Connor Campbell.

“Perhaps investors, free of any cumbersome data, have mulled over the impending - if still only potential - December rate-hike and decided to abandon the Dow for now.”

Asian equities ended the week on a downbeat note, dragged lower by a slump in Chinese markets, with the Shanghai Composite Index tumbling 5.48% to 3,436.30, recording its largest daily percentage loss since 18 August.

The decline in Chinese stocks came as Citic Securities, the country’s biggest stock broker, slumped 10% after agreeing to cooperate with China’s stock regulator in an investigation of the firm for alleged violation of security rules.

In company news, retailers were in focus on Black Friday after shoppers spent $1.1bn on Thanksgiving, a 22% year-on-year increase.

During early trading on Friday, Target said Apple iPads were the best sellers in stores and online, while TV were also selling well in its shops.

However, Target was down 0.10% and Apple slid 0.26%, while Wal-Mart Stores declined 0.42% despite reporting that over 25m people visited its website and mobile phone app.

Walt Disney slid 3.25% after the media giant said its ESPN sports network lost 3m subscribers over the last 12 months.

Meanwhile KaloBios Pharmaceuticals jumped 50.8% after Martin Shkreli, the group’s newly appointed CEO, revealed he has decided to stop lending out shares in the company.

Elsewhere, the dollar was broadly flat against yen and gained 0.21% and 0.31% against the euro and the pound respectively, while gold spot plunged 1.35% to $1,057.85.

Oil prices declined, with West Texas Intermediate losing 1.36% to $41.92 a barrel, while Brent slid 0.73% to $45.13 a barrel.