Stocks - Wall Street Opens Flat as Vaccine Hopes Keep Virus Fears in Check

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets were mixed after early trading on Friday as investors drew in their horns ahead of the second-quarter earnings season, which starts in earnest next week.

By 10:20 AM ET (1420 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 67 points or 0.3% at 25,773 points. The S&P 500 was up less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite, which retreated on Thursday from the record highs posted earlier in the week, was down another 0.2%. 

Concerns about the relentless rise in new coronavirus cases was held in check partly by an announcement from Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) that preliminary results from tests of its experimental drug Remdesivir associated it with a 62% drop in mortality in Covid-19 patients. While that's still not a silver bullet, it adds to the body of evidence showing progress by the healthcare sector in researching treatments for the coronavirus. Gilead stock opened up 2.3% but is still well below the highs it posted in the spring on the initial hopes for remdesivir.

Among the biggest fallers was Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) stock, which fell 6.5% in response to a downgrade from Citigroup (NYSE:C) to 'sell' from 'neutral'. Citi analysts expressed concern about upward pressure on the company's operating costs.

Another stock in the red - albeit only modestly - was Boeing (NYSE:BA), which fell 0.2% on the back of a report that American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) is seeking to cancel part of an order for 737 MAX airplanes. American Airlines stock was up 1.2%.

In the absence of economic data Friday, sentiment was largely driven again by developments with the pandemic. The U.S. recorded a new high of over 63,000 new cases on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins, with rising death and hospitalization rates also recorded in California, Texas and Florida. In addition, the state of Nevada reimposed limits on indoor dining and bars, clouding the outlook for the hospitality and entertainment sector in Las Vegas. The state of Kentucky also imposed a requirement to wear masks in indoor public spaces. 

"There are some times when despite the guidelines and the recommendations to open up carefully and prudently, some states skipped over those and just opened up too quickly," the U.S.'s top doctor Anthony Fauci told CNN. The Financial Times quoted Fauci as saying that hadn't briefed President Donald Trump in two months.   

The virus is also casting a shadow over oil prices, which fell to a two-week low after the International Energy Agency warned it could derail the expected recovery in fuel demand in the second half of this year. U.S. crude futures subsequently recovered to be up 0.2% at $39.67 a barrel.

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