S&P 500 Index opens higher for sixth straight session, financial stocks slump

Wall Street's main indexes are trading mixed on Thursday.
Falling US Treasury bond yields weigh on financial shares.
Energy stocks regain traction as OPEC meeting gets underway.

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

Major equity indexes in the US opened mixed on Monday amid varying performances of major sectors. As of writing, the S&P 500 Index was trading at a new all-time high of 4,665, rising 0.12% on the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.15% at 36,110 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.2% at 15,843.

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the Financials Index is down nearly 1% after the opening bell pressured by the sharp decline witnessed in the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond yield. On the other hand, the Energy Index is up 1.5% supported by rising crude oil prices ahead of OPEC's announcements.

Earlier in the day, the data from the US showed that Unit Labor Costs increased by 8.3% in the third quarter, surpassing the market expectation of 5.2% by a wide margin. Moreover, weekly Initial Jobless Claims declined to 269,000, the lowest print since the beginning of the pandemic.

S&P 500 chart (daily)

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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