US open: Dow opens lower, Walgreens leads losers

US stocks opened on a mixed note on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones trading lower as investors seemingly lost some of the confidence that led to big gains in previous sessions.

As of 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.25% at 26,191.87, while the S&P 500 was flat at 2,867.27. The Nasdaq, however, was up 0.11% at 7,837.64.

The Dow opened 66 points lower after Wall Street's main market gauges reclaimed their October highs on Monday.

Defensive areas of the market were faring worst, with Healthcare Providers trading down by 1.02%, Electricity off by 0.73% and Utilities down by 0.67%.

In other news, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed a rule aimed at limiting the impact of the failure of larger banks.

With banks being required to issue debt that would convert to equity if they go bankrupt, the banking agencies proposed changes are intended to discourage large global banks from buying debt-to-equity issuance from their peers by slapping them with a penalty on purchases.

"This would reduce interconnectedness between large banking organisations and, if [one] were to fail, reduce the impact on the financial system from that failure," the agencies said.

On the other side of the pond, Westminster's inability to decide on any concrete alternative to Prime Minister Theresa May's withdrawal proposal, during the previous session, was also somewhat restraining traders, although by and large analysts appeared confident that a deal would be agreed in the end.

West Texas Intermediate improved 1.07% to $62.25 a barrel, while the cost of a barrel of Brent Crude increased 0.30% to $69.22 each.

Elsewhere, Bitcoin jumped 16.19% to $4,790.42 and the USD picked up 0.47% against the GBP to 0.7668.

Notably, the Greenback was 2.82% stronger versus the Turkish lira at 5.6438, more than reversing the previous day's losses in the process.

Shares in ridesharing firm Lyft were down 4%, having closed below their IPO price of $72 during the prior day's trading.

Walgreens Boots Alliance tumbled 12.21% after the pharmacy chain disappointed with its second-quarter results.

On the data front, US durable goods orders declined at a 1.6% month-on-month pace in February to reach $251bn, according to the Department of Commerce. Economists had expected a drop of 1.2%.

Orders for capital goods were also weaker, dipping by 0.1% on the month (consensus: 0.3%) at the so-called 'core' level.

Auto sales figures for March were still to come.