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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened lower on Wednesday as the peace euphoria of Tuesday faded against a backdrop of continued Russian offensives in part of Ukraine. Fears of inflation were also in evidence again as the latest revision of fourth-quarter GDP data contained an upward revision to key measure of inflation in the period.
By 9:45 AM ET (1345 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 5 points – effectively flat – at 35,289 points. The broader-based S&P 500 was down 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.3%.
Earlier, a Ukrainian government spokesman said that Russia had renewed and intensified its attacks in the east of the country, lending substance to Western suspicions that the announcement of a de-escalation in the region around Kyiv (following some damaging battlefield reverses) was little more than a maneuver to gain time to regroup. Optimists pointed to more comments from the head of Russia’s negotiating team in Istanbul.
News closer to home was more encouraging. ADP’s monthly report on private-sector hiring indicated that 455,000 jobs were created through the middle of March, only a slight moderation from February’s rate. That follows the Labor Department’s monthly job openings survey on Tuesday that showed vacancies still close to record highs, with little sign of a slowdown in sight.
