US open: Stocks trade lower following hotter-than-expected PPI reading

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

Wall Street stocks were in the red early on Thursday as investors digested a hotter-than-expected wholesale inflation reading.

As of 1535 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.29% at 38,928.89, while the S&P 500 lost 0.35% to 5,147.08 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.22% weaker at 16,142.04.

The Dow opened 114.43 points lower on Thursday, more than reversing gains recorded the previous session.

Thursday's primary focus was Ferbuary's producer price index, a measure of wholesale inflation, which advanced 0.6% last month - double what economists had been expecting to see. The PPI report marks the last major piece of macro data to be released ahead of the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy meeting on 19 and 20 March.

Elsewhere, retail sales in the grew less than expected last month, according to the Department of Commerce, which said retail sales volumes grew at a 0.6% month-on-month pace in January to reach $700.7bn in seasonally adjusted terms. Economists had pencilled-in an increase of 0.8%. Excluding automobiles, retail sales were up by 0.3% on the month (consensus: 0.5%). January's decline in retail sales was revised down from an initial estimate of -0.8% to -1.1%.

On another note, first-time unemployment claims dipped unexpectedly in the week ended 9 March, according to the Department of Labor, slipping by 1,000 to reach 209,000. Economists had anticipated a rise to 218,000. The four-week moving average on the other hand, which aims to smooth out the variations in the data from one week to the next, declined by 500 to 208,000, while secondary claims, which are those not being filed for the first time and referencing the week ended 2 March, were up by 17,000 to 1.81m.

In the corporate space, Robinhood traded higher on the back of a 16% month-on-month jump in assets under custody, while Fisker was firmly in the red following a Wall Street Journal report that the company had hired restructuring advisors in preparation for a potential bankruptcy filing.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $427.18 2.91%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $173.91 1.62%
Visa Inc. (V) $287.59 0.86%
Boeing Co. (BA) $183.01 0.36%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $154.27 0.25%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $305.33 0.21%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $342.24 0.21%
Unitedhealth Group Inc. (UNH) $488.77 0.16%
Dowdupont Inc. (DWDP) $0.00 0.00%
3M Co. (MMM) $103.65 -0.40%