US open: Dow Jones slips from record high in early trade

dl wall street new york city wall st nyc new york stock exchange nyse nasdaq us usa united states of america trading finance unsplash — Sharecast / Roberto Junior via Unsplash

Wall Street stocks were mixed early on Friday as stocks struggled to close out an otherwise solid week on a high.

As of 1545 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.10% at 37,712.76, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.02% to 4,720.72 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.48% firmer at 14,832.89.

The Dow opened 35.59 points lower on Friday, taking a modest bite out of gains recorded in the previous session.

The blue-chip index jumped more than 1% on Wednesday and hit a fresh record high of more than 37,200 on Thursday, with gains fuelled by comments from the Federal Open Market Committee's Jerome Powell that rates will be cut up to three times in 2024, indicating that the central bank was on a path to successfully implementing a soft landing for the US economy.

Treasury yields, which move inversely to stocks, headed south this week after briefly topping 5% in November, with the benchmark 10-year note down slightly lower at 3.912% and its two-year counterpart slightly higher at 4.418%, pushing the dollar to a fresh four-and-a-half month low as a result.

On the macro front, business activity in New York's manufacturing sector declined sharply this month, according to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey by the Regional Federal Reserve Bank on Friday. The headline general business conditions index, which measures activity for New York's manufacturers each month, dropped 24 points to -14.5 from +9.1 in November. This was significantly lower than the drop to +2.0 expected by the market and the 12-month average level of -8.6.

Elsewhere, industrial output in the US rebounded by less than expected in November, according to figures released on Friday by the Federal Reserve. The volume of production from industries such as factories and manufacturing rose by just 0.2%, missing the consensus estimate of 0.3%. Manufacturing output, which comprises 78% of overall production, increased by just 0.3% over the month, under the 0.4% expected by analysts.

Finally, the S&P Global flash US manufacturing PMI fell to 48.2 in December, the lowest level seen in four months, compared to 49.4 in November and forecasts of 49.3, while the services PMI rose to 51.3 in December, up from 50.8 in the previous month and beating expectations for a reading of 50.8 to extend the period of resilience of the US services sector to restrictive interest rates from the Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, the composite PMI rose to 51.0 in December, up from November's 50.7 print to mark the private sector's third-straight month of growth and the fastest pace in five months.

No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Friday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

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