Investing.com – Stocks were lower on Friday morning as investors wait for news on who the next Federal Reserve chair will be.
The S&P 500 fell over one point or 0.07% as of 10:32 AM ET (2:31 PM GMT) while the Dow composite slipped 18 points or 0.08% . Tech heavy NASDAQ Composite gained 22 points or 0.34%.
United States President Donald Trump is expected to announce the next Fed chair this week, with many speculating that Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell is the favored candidate. The other candidate is Stanford University economics professor John Taylor.
Investors are also digesting the first indictments that are connected to a probe that Russia could have influenced the 2016 United States election. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and lobbying partner, Rick Gates, were charged by the FBI on Monday with money laundering, operating as foreign agents of the Ukraine government, and making false statements to federal authorities.
Among the biggest movers after the morning bell was manufacturing firm Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), which rose 1.22% and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), with surged 2.57% amid strong demand for its iPhone X. Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) was also up 2.14%.
Elsewhere, vehicle maker General Motors (NYSE:GM) fell 2.50% after Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) downgraded its stocks to sell while Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) slumped 5.36% as Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) analysts warned that cryptocurrency mining chip demand could be cut in half. Pharmaceutical firm Merck (NYSE:MRK) was down 4.86% after it said it withdrew a European application for use of its cancer immunotherapy.
Meanwhile stocks in Europe rallied. In Germany the DAX rose 22 points or 0.16% while France’s CAC 40 inched forward five points or 0.009% and in London the FTSE 100 fell four points or 0.06%. Spain’s IBEX 35 jumped 256 points or 2.52% amid political uncertainty as the central government moves to exert control over Catalonia. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 increased 10 points or 0.28%.
In commodities, gold futures were up 0.16% to $1,273.14 a troy ounce while crude oil futures gained 0.35% to $54.09 a barrel. The U.S dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, decreased 0.04% to 94.68.