By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks opened mixed on Wednesday as the approach Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole symposium deterred the taking of new positions.
Earlier, core durable goods orders for July came in marginally above expectations, but did little to stir the general summer lethargy.
By 9:45 AM ET (1345 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 50 points, or 0.1%, at 35,316 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite eked out modest gains of less than 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.
Analysts have pared back their initial expectations that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will signal an early start to the reduction of its bond purchases in his keynote speech at the symposium on Friday. After a string of encouraging labor market data and above-target inflation prints, data have started to show signs of the economy weakening under the latest wave of the pandemic, which has forced many high-profile companies to delay their plans for bringing staff back to the office.
Most analysts expect tapering will be announced in November-December, with rate hikes perhaps in late 2022 or 2023," said Sonal Desai, chief investment officer for fixed income at Franklin Templeton in a blog post. "This is a very timid start. If the current monetary policy stance was appropriate when COVID-19 struck over a year ago and the economy was shut down, it can’t possibly be appropriate now that we have vaccines, a strong recovery and record fiscal stimulus."
The Fed is currently buying bonds at a rate of $120 billion a month.
Among early movers, Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE:DKS) stock stood out with a gain of 17%, after it raised its full-year guidance for the second time this year on the back of a better-than-expected spring quarter. Going in the other direction was Cassava Sciences (NASDAQ:SAVA) stock, which fell 28% after a lawyer asked federal regulators to halt clinical trials of its experimental drug for treating Alzheimer's Disease. The so-called 'statement of concern' cited "concerns about the quality and integrity of the laboratory-based studies surrounding this drug candidate," and referenced "a long-standing pattern of seemingly intentional data manipulation and misrepresentation in scientific papers and corporate disclosures."
Cassava rebutted the allegations in a statement of its own.
Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) stock also fell 17% after failing to live up the expectations stoked by better results this quarter from other department stores such as Macy's (NYSE:M).
Meme stocks were mixed after a day of wild gains in thin trading on Tuesday. GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock was down 5.4%, while AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) was down 0.8%. Both were up sharply on Tuesday despite a lack of any fundamental news.
Elsewhere, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) stock fell 0.4%, despite announcing that early-stage trial results showed that a booster jab of its one-shot Covid-19 vaccine strongly enhanced the body's immunity against the coronavirus.