US open: Stocks open lower as investors focus on ECB meeting

US stocks opened lower on Wednesday, as investors remained focused on Thursday’s European Central Bank (ECB) meeting while response to a positive housing report was subdued.

Just after 09:30 in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 63.80 points, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.15% and the Nasdaq was down 11.51 points.

Investors expect the ECB to outline plane for a programme of quantitative easing when it meets on Thursday, though Ewald Nowotny warned people “should not get overexcited” about the possible outcomes.

“A mixed bag of earnings and uncertainty over future monetary policy in Europe is keeping volatility in US markets supressed this week with the S&P 500 capped at around 2,030 and 17,540 an issue for the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” said CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler.

“As much as the US banking sector might have underperformed, there is still time for an improvement and today's US Bancorp, American Express and eBay results will be first up to improve sentiment.”

Meanwhile, a better-than-expected report on housing starts showed construction started on new US homes increased by 4.4% last month, drove forward by single-family homes.

In corporate news, Netflix rose almost 20% after announcing late on Tuesday its fourth quarter result beat analysts’ expectations and giving an upbeat look for 2015.

United Health Group gained almost 2% after a bigger-than-expected rise in quarterly profit, while Microsoft, which will unveil its next version of Windows later on Wednesday, retreated.

IBM fell over 3% after reporting declines in fourth quarter profit and revenue late on Tuesday, while BHP Billiton shed 1% after reporting up to $250m in write-down on its petroleum business.

Gold futures maintained Tuesday’s momentum and advanced by a further 0.7% to 1,303.20, while the dollar lost over 1% against the yen as Japanese stocks fell. The greenback fell almost 0.8% against the euro, but registered marginal gains against the pound.

Oil prices rebounded, with West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude both gaining almost 2% and trading at just under $47.5 and just under $49 a barrel respectively.