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Investing.com — U.S. stocks opened mostly lower on Friday after a second straight monthly drop in retail sales underlined the loss of momentum in the economy due to record Covid-19 infections around the turn of the year.
The mood wasn’t helped much by an opening salvo of bank earnings that looked strong at first sight, but which belied a slowdown in lending trend, or by news of an SEC investigation into ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) amid doubts over the accounting for one of its most valuable assets.
By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 174 points, or 0.6% at 30,817 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.4% while the Nasdaq Composite was just staying in positive territory.
Earlier, the Commerce Department had reported that retail sales dropped 0.7% in December, and also revised down November’s figure to a 1.4% drop, rather than the 1.1% originally reported. The figures were a fresh reminder of the pressure on the retail sector from a pandemic which spread rapidly at the end of last year in the aftermath of the election and, in particular, the Thanksgiving holiday. U.S. infection rates and hospital admissions are only now starting to flatten off, while the number of daily deaths involving Covid is still running at nearly 4,000.
Producer price inflation for December and the New York Manufacturing Index for January also came in slightly below expectations.
