Investing.com - U.S. stocks opened higher on Wednesday, as investors awaited the release of U.S. home sales data later in the day, as well as testimony by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday.
During early U.S. trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.18%, the S&P 500 edged up 0.19%, while the Nasdaq Composite index gained 0.40%.
Markets were jittery after the Conference Board reported Tuesday that its U.S. consumer confidence index declined to 78.1 in February, from a downwardly revised 79.4 last month, amid concerns over the short-term outlook for business conditions, jobs, and earnings.
A recent series of disappointing U.S. economic indicators have sparked concerns that the recovery has lost momentum since the end of last year.
Janet Yellen was expected to reiterate that the U.S. central bank would continue to roll back its asset purchase program, as long as the economy improves as expected.
In the financial sector, JPMorgan Chase inched up 0.02% and Goldman Sachs added 0.26% as the two lenders were said to be among 18 financial firms that agreed to stop participating in some surveys of analyst sentiment while New York investigates early access to the information.
Morgan Stanley was up 0.34% following reports it gave employees $2.72 billion in deferred awards for 2013 performance, disclosing the amount for the first time.
Meanwhile, Bank of America dipped 0.03% after the U.S. lender disclosed new probes into its mortgage and foreign-exchange businesses and rose the estimate of potential legal losses by 20% to $6.1 billion.
Elsewhere, First Solar Inc. saw shares dive 11.79% after the largest U.S. solar-panel manufacturer reported a 58% profit drop the fourth quarter.
Among earnings, Lowe’s reported fiscal fourth quarter results that were broadly in line with market expectations, sending shares in the world's second largest home improvement retailer up 2.20%.
Target surged 3.72% after the retailer beat market expectations and said the December data breach shaved two cents a share off its earnings and impacted sales as well. CEO Gregg Steinhafel said however that sales trends have improved in recent weeks.
Other stocks likely to be in focus included Baidu, Autodesk, L Brands and JCPenney, scheduled to report quarterly earnings after the closing bell.
Across the Atlantic, European stock markets were lower. The EURO STOXX 50 declined 0.45%, France’s CAC 40 retreated 0.57%, Germany's DAX slid 0.54%, while Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.43%.
During the Asian trading session, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index climbed 0.54%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index dropped 0.54%.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release data on new home sales.