Investing.com - Wall Street opened lower on Friday as fears of a possible war between the U.S. and Iran kept investor sentiment in check.
The S&P 500 inched down 5 points or 0.2% of 10:12 AM ET (14:12 GMT). The Dow was flat and tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 23 points or 0.3%.
U.S. President Donald Trump said via Twitter that he had come within minutes of firing missiles at Iran in response to it shooting down a surveillance drone.
Tensions between the two countries have been fragile since the White House decided to withdraw from the UN-backed 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. The administration most recently accused Iran of last week's attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, which Tehran denies.
Beyond Meat NASDAQ:BYND) slumped 3.4%, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) dipped 0.4% and Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC) was down 8.1% after it reported a loss in its last quarter largely due to expansion costs.
Elsewhere, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) gained 1.2%, while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) was up 0.5% and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) jumped 0.7%.
UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) inched up 0.2% after The Wall Street Journal reported that it had agreed to buy health care payments firm Equian for $3.2 billion.
In commodities, crude jumped 0.6% to $57.38 a barrel. Gold futures gained 0.2% to $1,399.65 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.1% to 96.067.