US open: Stocks mixed after ECB move

Wall Street was trading in a mixed fashion early on in the session, despite what most economists described as “bold” action from the European Central Bank to over-deliver on market expectations for monetary policy stimulus.

As of 15:49GMT the Dow Jones Industrials was lower by 1.81 points to 16,998.62, the S&P 500 up by 1.96 points at 1,991.22 while the Nasdaq Composite was off by just a touch, slipping lower by 0.86 points to 4,673.20.

In parallel, West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were down 2.03% to $37.53 a barrel and Brent crude was 2.68% lower at $40.00.

According to reports citing Reuters, Iran was acting as a roadblock to a meeting between several of the world’s major oil producers which was scheduled to take place in Russia, on 20 March.

The European Central Bank shifted all its main policy rates lower, increased the size of its monthly asset purchase programme by a larger-than-expected €20bn to €80bn and announced it would begin to invest in non-bank euro-denominated bonds.

Those announcements sent the yield on Spanish 10-year bond yields plunging by 20 basis points and the single currency promptly lower. However, the latter reversed its losses after Draghi said he did not foresee further interest rate cuts.

Initial weekly unemployment claims in the States dropped by 18,000 over the week ending on 5 March to reach 259,000, according to the Department of Labor.

That was well below the 275,000 the consensus was expecting.

“The key point here is that claims remain close to their cycle - and all-time - lows, signalling no distress at all in the labor market, despite the obvious severe weakness in the energy sector and related manufacturing. These sectors are very small and their woes are being offset by strength elsewhere,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a research note sent to clients.

In corporate news, Box, an online file sharing and content management service, posted a smaller-than-expected loss of 26 cents per share for the fourth quarter, on revenue of $85m.

Meanwhile, mobile payments company Square said gross payment volume increased 47% in the fourth quarter to $10.2bn.

Nasdaq said it would acquire International Securities Exchange for $1.1bn.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note was higher by two basis points to 1.8989.