By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened mixed on Friday, with the Dow and S&P both pushing to new all-time highs on the back of a fresh wave of reopening trades, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite lagged.
By 9:45 AM ET (1345 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 126 points, or 0.4%, at 33,630 points, while the S&P 500 was up a more modest 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite, by contrast, was down 0.4%, underperforming after producer price inflation data for March pushed bond yields higher.
Factory gate inflation hit its highest in 10 years in March, coming in above expectations at 4.2%. The rise was mostly due to a distortive base effect, created by the collapse of oil prices a year ago during the first wave of the pandemic. However, not all of the rise could be explained away by statistical quirks. The core PPI rose 0.7% on the month from February, well ahead of expectations of a 0.2% increase and a concrete reflection of higher input prices and supply chain constraints reported by companies in March's business surveys.
Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ:PTON) and Zoom Video (NASDAQ:ZM), two big winners of the lockdown age, were among the most prominent losers in early trade. Peloton stock fell 3.7%, while Zoom stock fell 2.2%.
There was also some eye-catching movement among the makers of Covid-19 vaccines, with Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock rising 5.5% and Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) stock up 2.0%. Overnight, Australia said it would redirect some purchases of vaccines away from AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) and toward Pfizer and BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), owing to evidence linking the former to a low but nonetheless significant risk of blood clotting disorders. In addition, reports suggested that Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) will suffer production bottlenecks for its vaccine over the next month, allowing Moderna and Pfizer to grab market share from it in the U.S.
Elsewhere, Boeing (NYSE:BA) stock fell 1.4% after the aircraft maker suffered a fresh embarrassment with regard to its 737 MAX planes. Boeing told a handful of clients that certain 737 MAX models needed to have a potential electrical fixed.
Fubotv (NYSE:FUBO) stock rose 7.8% after the sports-streaming service acquired exclusive streaming rights for the South American Qatar World Cup 2022 qualifying matches, while Levi Strauss (NYSE:LEVI) stock rose 4.2% after raising its quarterly dividend and upping its revenue and profit guidance for the coming quarter.