US Stock Markets Today: S&P 500 Opens 0.41% Lower, Nasdaq Dips 0.46%

The three main Wall Street indices opened lower on Tuesday, as S&P 500 was dipped 0.41% at 5,830.13 points at the opening bell and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also fell 0.46% to 18,454.13.

The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average also opened lower, 0.80% to open at 42,931.60.

Stocks like Microsoft Corp. were up 1.03%, General Motors Co. was higher 7.73%, and Philip Morris International Inc. jumped 6.81%. Among the companies that slipped in early trade were Apple Inc., which dropped 1.48% and Intel Corp., down 1.42%.

Among the 11 S&P 500 sectoral indices, three were trading higher, whereas eight slipped against the previous day's close. The gains were led by the consumer sector and energy sector whereas the utility sector, financial sector and industrial sector were among the drags.

Even though US equities are expensive, going underweight is a tough call for investors in the environment where S&P 500 reached 47 record highs this year starting in January, Vera Fehling, DWS Europe chief investment officer, told Bloomberg. 

“If you said then, ‘things are looking quite stretched’ — you would have massively underperformed,” she added. “It’s difficult to explain going into the end of such a year with a significant underweight in US equities.”

As the US market opened, spot gold rose 0.60% to $2,736.17 an ounce. Crude oil prices were higher, with Brent trading 0.93% higher at $74.98 per barrel.

The Bloomberg Dollar Index changed a little, with the British Pound showing a minor adjustment to $1.2981 while the Japanese yen also changing slightly to 150.79 per dollar.

Bitcoin, the largest traded cryptocurrency, fell 0.6% to $67,337.59.