U.S. stocks opened modestly lower on Friday, with the main benchmarks set to wrap up weekly trade with losses, as investors assumed a cautious posture ahead of a Hurricane Irma making landfall in Florida and a potential missile test by North Korea over the weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened down 0.2% at 21,737, the S&P 500 index slipped 0.2% at 2,459, while Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.2% at 6,385. For the week, the Dow was looking at a loss of of about 1.1%, the Nasdaq was set for a 0.8% weekly drop, while the S&P 500 was on track for a weekly decline of about 0.7%. The week’s action has been framed by sharp falls in the U.S. dollar to a its lowest level since around 2015 and the 10-year Treasury note also looking at its lowest yield in 2017 at around 2.06%, compared with 2.10% to start the week. Bond prices and yields move inversely. The slight downdraft this week comes as investors have grappled with the increasing geopolitical threat from North Korea, which could test a ballistic missile on Saturday to commemorate its founding day in 1948, while the most powerful ever Atlantic storm, Hurricane Irma, is headed toward Florida, weeks after Hurricane Harvey wrecked the Houston area. Both hurricanes are expected to have an effect on U.S. growth projections. In corporate news, shares of Equifax Inc. tumbled about 15% after the company late Thursday disclosed that personal data of 143 million Americans, including Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and credit card numbers, had been exposed in a cyberattack.
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