By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks opened mixed on Monday at the start of a week that is likely to be dominated by the Federal Reserve's policy meeting and its reaction - if any - to growing signs of an economic recovery that could drive inflation higher.
By 9:45 AM ET (1345 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 98 points, or 0.3%, at 32,877 points, while the S&P 500 was unchanged, as the positive tone in futures overnight petered out. The NASDAQ Composite was down 0.1%, again underperforming, as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock slipped 1% in response to a tongue-in-cheek filing adding the title of "TechnoKing" to CEO Elon Musk and "Master of Coin" to his chief financial officer. The move seemed a reaction to Bitcoin - on which Tesla had made a $1.5 billion bet - hitting new highs over the weekend.
Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen – a former chair of the Federal Reserve – had said she sees any inflationary risks arising from the $1.9 trillion stimulus package as “small” and “manageable”.
However, with $1,400 stimulus checks starting to arrive at U.S. households over the weekend, the prospect of some more asset price inflation in the stock market seems realistic.
Reopening trades continued to be in vogue, after Michigan said it would aim to make all adults eligible for vaccination against Covid-19 by early May, another advance of the timetable as regards bringing herd immunity to the U.S. AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) stock rose 17% in a literal reopening trade, after it said nearly all of its California movie theaters will reopen this week.
Infection rates in the U.S. have fallen to their lowest since late October, as have the numbers of those in hospital with the coronavirus. President Joe Biden has said he is aiming for a return to normal life by early July. That timetable contrasts increasingly sharply with Europe's, where a new wave of Covid-19 variants is taking hold, threatening to push back reopening even further. The U.S.'s strong relative growth outlook has pushed the dollar higher, along with U.S. bond yields. Banking stocks have been among the chief beneficiaries, and Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) stock both hit their highest in over a year in early trading.
Elsewhere, GenMark Diagnostics (NASDAQ:GNMK) stock rose 29% and Roche (OTC:RHHBY) ADRs rose 1.3% after the Swiss giant agreed to buy the U.S. molecular diagnostics specialist for $1.6 billion.
Flutter Entertainment ADRs (OTC:PDYPY) also rose 2.2% to a new all-time high after the London-based company said it is looking at spinning off its FanDuel unit, a nod to the stellar performance of rival DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) since it went public.