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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened lower on Wednesday, retracing Tuesday’s modest gains after another mixed batch of results from the retail sector, in which fears of rising cost pressures overshadowed overall decent operating figures for the quarter just ended.
The market was also held back by a second straight decline in monthly housing starts, defying expectations for a rebound in October. Building permits, however, rebounded more sharply than expected.
By 9:45 AM ET (1445 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 42 points, or 0.1% at 36,100 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was down less than 0.1%.
Early attention was focused on retailers, after Walmart (NYSE:WMT) admitted on Tuesday that rising costs were starting to eat into its profits, and the same message was sent by its rival Target , which said gross margins were compressed in the last three months. Target (NYSE:TGT) stock fell 5.2%.
There were more upbeat updates, however, from Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW), which was supported by the same factors as Home Depot (NYSE:HD) had been on Tuesday – above all by buoyant demand from professionals for tools and building materials to service the boom in home improvement.
