Proactive Investors -
- FTSE 100 47 points higher
- Retail sales beat expectations
- Blue chips at 12-month high
Wall Street opens lower
US stocks have opened lower after appearing to lose some of their momentum from the last couple of days.
The Dow Jones was down 9 points at 39,771, while the Nasdaq deopped 18 points at 16,384.
The S&P 500 kept flat at 5,241.
On Thursday, the major indexes closed at record levels, having hit all-time intraday highs.
Some of the equities which made the biggest moves at the start of trading include Lululemon and Nike (NYSE:NKE), down 13.5% and 7% respectively, after the two warned of a weaker-than-anticipated sports clothing industry in the near-term.
Other movers included Reddit, down 2%, after a stellar debut and Best Buy, up 3%, after JP Morgan upgraded it from neutral to overweight.
Much of this week's strong performance has been driven by the dovish outlook provided by the Federal Reserve, which indicated there could be three interest rate cuts in 2024, the first of which in summer.
Santander expecting to improve on 2023's record profits
Santander (BME:SAN) is expecting to improve on its record profits from 2023, with another beat in the coming year.
More than €6 billion, or £5.2 billion, is expected to be dished out to shareholders as a result.
It comes as the Spanish lender attempts to shift away from traditional practices to become a "digital bank with branches".
Santander said at its AGM on Friday that it's on track to meet its record targets for 2024, with 2 million new customers having poured in this year.
It means income is expected to be 10% higher in the first quarter.
In 2023, Santander posted profits of €11.1 billion and returned €5.5 billion back to shareholders via share buybacks.
Chairwoman Ana Botin said: “I am very confident that we will deliver a considerably better performance in 2024 than 2023, which was already a record year, and will meet our 2024 targets.”
Bitcoin suffers tough week ahead of April's 'halving' event
Bitcoin was trading lower in early Friday exchanges, down 1.4% at US$64,563, capping off a volatile week for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The markets saw a bout of profit-taking following last Thursday’s all-time high, dragging the BTC/USD pair 5% lower week on week.
JP Morgan analysts believe Bitcoin "still looks overbought" and they predict it will continue to fall before April when the 'halving' event takes place.
A halving event is scheduled to take place on April 20 and will see the number of bitcoins available halved, with the block reward falling from 6.25 to 3.125.