US: Wall Street opens little changed

[NEW YORK] Major Wall Street indices appeared headed for another choppy session early Wednesday, while so-called "meme" stocks gyrated.

Stocks were again near the flat-line as investors seek to assess whether inflation will emerge as a major threat to the recovery. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note slipped early in the day, suggesting less worry on the inflation front.

In other news, US President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans on Tuesday ended weeks of negotiations on an infrastructure package, with each side blaming the other for the talks' collapse.

Meanwhile shares of Clover Health Investment jumped more than 12 per cent, while AMC Entertainment sank more than 11 per cent. Both companies are among the equities supported by investors on social media platform Reddit.

About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1 per cent at 34,578.28.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.1 per cent to 4,232.71, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.4 per cent to 13,978.96.

Among individual companies, Campbell Soup fell 5.4 percent as it reported that sales dropped 11 per cent from the year-ago period to US$2.0 billion, reflecting a decline from the surge seen a year ago caused by pantry-loading in the early days of the pandemic.

AFP