By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened higher on Friday, with short-covering the order of the day after volatile week dominated by recession fears.
By 9:44 AM ET (1344 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 243 points, or 0.8%, at 31,496 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.0%.
However, the main indices are still on course for their lowest weekly close in a year and a half, after a sequence of poor earnings reports from the retail sector pointed to growth slowing under the weight of inflation.
Federal Reserve officials have also squashed any incipient hopes that they might ride to the market's rescue by not raising rates as far and as fast as currently expected. Kansas City Fed President Esther George and Minnesota's Neel Kashkari - who are at the opposing ends of the hawk-dove policy spectrum, both played down suggestions that the stock market's woes will make it relax its policy.
J.P. Morgan analysts cut their growth forecasts for U.S. growth for both this year and 2023 on Thursday, adjusting to the likelihood of the Fed raising rates above the 'neutral rate' in order to choke off excess demand.
Ross Stores (NASDAQ:ROST) added to the general malaise in retail, falling 21% to a four-year low after publishing its quarterly numbers on Thursday evening. Ross said it faces an "increasingly uncertain macro-economic and geopolitical environment" and now expects comparable sales to fall this year, having earlier expected modest growth.
Deere & Co. (NYSE:DE) stock also fell over 10% despite the maker of farming equipment raising its profit outlook for the year by around 5%. Analysts said the guidance may prove to be too aggressive. The stock has been a favorite defensive play recently, with high agricultural commodity prices seen likely to underpin demand for its machinery for the foreseeable future.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock, meanwhile, fell 4.2% to its lowest since August after CEO Elon Musk told an event that he expects to be producing fully-autonomous cars "around a year from now." Musk has been issuing similar guidance for most of the last eight years. The stock has suffered from selling by passive funds this week after it was dropped by S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) from a benchmark ESG-themed index due to repeated instances of racial discrimination in its factories.
Foot Locker (NYSE:FL) stock fared better, opening 7.9% higher after beating expectations for earnings by around 6% in the last quarter.
Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) was another stock heading higher, rising 12.4% after beating expectations for sales and profit in the last quarter and raising its guidance for the full year. The cybersecurity specialist was arguably due a bounce after losing nearly one-third of its value in the last month, a victim of the sharp rerating of long-duration growth stocks.