US open: Stocks lower as earnings season kicks off

dl wall street st new york city nyc nyse stock exchange ny dow jones nasdaq sp finance us usa united states of america — Wall StreetSharecast photo / Josh White

US stocks were in the red early on Friday as market participants strapped themselves in for the beginning of another corporate earnings season.

As of 1520 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.41% at 37,556.71, while the S&P 500 lost 0.03% at 4,778.66 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.02% at 14,967.90.

The Dow opened 154.31 points lower on Friday, more than erasing modest gains recorded in the previous session as market participants digested key CPI data, which revealed inflation had risen more than expected in December, with consumer prices rising by 3.4%, up from 3.1% in November and above economists' expectations of a 3.2% increase.

Today's primary focus was the corporate space, with Bank of America reporting a drop in M&A fees and taking a hit from regulatory charges, while Bank of New York Mellon also posted a 50% drop in fourth-quarter profits as a result of one-time charges.

Wells Fargo, on the other hand, delivered 9% quarterly growth in net income, but warned of lower interest income in the new year, while JPMorgan Chase said it had seen record annual profits thanks to an interest rate windfall.

Elsewhere, Citi announced that it will cut 20,000 jobs as it announced a massive $1.8bn quarterly loss, driven largely by charges ranging from currency exposure in Argentina and Russia, while BlackRock revealed it was spending $12.5bn in a cash-and-shares deal to take over Global Infrastructure Partners, a private infrastructure fund manager based in New York.

Delta Air Lines and UnitedHealth will also report their latest quarterly figures on Friday.

On the macro front, the US producer price index unexpectedly fell in December, according to the Labor Department, dropping 0.1% month-on-month but remained 1% higher than the same time a year ago. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core PPI was flat against the estimate for a 0.2% increase

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $38.51 1.60%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $147.00 1.18%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $90.42 1.08%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $171.77 0.86%
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) $162.13 0.61%
Amgen Inc. (AMGN) $304.68 0.52%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $162.99 0.51%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $272.43 0.39%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $60.03 0.36%
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $150.88 0.25%