US open: S&P 500 looks to build on all-time high
Wall Street trading got off to a mixed start on Friday after the S&P 500 hit another fresh record in the previous session.
As of 1540 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.22% at 33,576.46 and the S&P 500 was 0.13% firmer at 4,102.43, while the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.13% weaker at 13,811.58.
The Dow opened 72.89 points higher on Friday, extending gains recorded in the previous session despite comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell that the US recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic remained "uneven and incomplete".
At a virtual event hosted by the International Monetary Fund, Powell indicated that a more robust recovery was needed and stated the "unevenness" was something the central bank viewed as "a very serious issue".
Also in focus was news that China's factory gate prices rose at their fastest annual pace since July 2018 last month, with the nation's producer price index rising 4.4% year-on-year and the consumer price index ticking up 0.4%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
On the US macro front, the producer price index surged in March, leading to the largest annual gain in nine and a half years. The producer price index for final demand jumped 1.0% last month, according to the Labor Department, after increasing 0.5% in February. For the year as a whole, the PPI surged 4.2%.
Elsewhere, wholesale inventories in the US increased 0.6% month-on-month in February after a 1.4% rise in January and above preliminary estimates for a print of 0.5% for a seventh consecutive month of gains.
In the corporate space, reopening plays were in the green early on Friday, with the likes of General Electric, Carnival Corp and JPMorgan all up, while "stay-at-home" winner Netflix traded lower.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note also ticked up to around 1.66%.