U.S. stocks opened firmly lower Friday, with the Dow industrials trading around 100 points lower, as a steadily rising dollar and earnings grabbed investors’ attention. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 109 points, or 0.6%, at 18,057, while the S&P 500 index was down 9 points, or 0.4%, at 2,131. The Nasdaq Composite Index gave up about 8 points, or less than 0.2%, to stand at 5,237 — its decline limited by a 5.1% rise in tech giant Microsoft Corp. . Over the week, the S&P 500 is on track for a 0.4% gain, while the Dow is on pace for a 0.1% rise, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is tracking toward a 0.5% weekly climb. That would end two weekly declines in a row for the three main indexes. The dollar is up 0.4%, as gauged by the ICE U.S. Dollar Index , as the British pound and the euro have been under pressure. The greenback is on track for a 0.6% weekly return and a 3.4% advance for October, according to FactSet data. A stronger buck can weigh on quarterly results for multinational companies. Meanwhile, Microsoft opened at a record level after late Thursday reporting better-than-expected results.
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