Wall Street indices extended their decline for the third straight session on Friday, with the wider index S&P 500 heading into its fourth consecutive week of decline.
Tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite opened 0.61% or 134.15 points lower at 21,965.54, S&P 500 slipped 0.30% or 20 points to open at 6,586.90, and Dow Jones Industrial Average opened marginally lower at 45,986.80.
As of 10:06 a.m. EST, S&P 500 traded 0.75% lower at 6,556.83, Nasdaq dipped 1.16% or 255 points to 21,835.61, and Dow Jones traded 0.32% lower at 45,874.22.
The decline comes as US and Israel's war with Iran entered its 21st day, with no signs of de-escalation. Earlier, Federal Reserve's decision to hold fund rate steady had weighed on the Wall Street.
After the market opened, five out of the 11 sectoral indices traded in the red while six traded in the green. Decline was led by Consumer Discretionary sector, Communication Services sector, and Information Technology sector. While the Energy sector led the gains.
Crude rally which had eased on Thursday, resumed again with the West Texas Intermediate trading 0.3% higher at $95.82 a barrel and Brent Global benchmark Brent Crude 0.17% higher at $108.87. Spot gold prices slumped 0.8% to $4,614.06 an ounce.
Losses in big tech weighed on the Nasdaq index which sank over 1% within the first hour of trade. Nvidia Corp. traded 1.6% lower at $175.79, Amazon.com Inc. slipped 1.26% to $206.11, and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. declined nearly 2% to $302.11.
Besides this, Microsoft Corp. traded 1.4% lower at $383.62, Meta Platforms Inc. traded 2% lower at $595.02, and Tesla slumped sharply over 2% to trade at $371.85.
However, US Dollar Spot Index strengthened against global currencies and rose 0.3%. On the other hand, euro fell 0.3% to $1.1554, British pound fell 0.5% to $1.3365, and the Japanese yen fell 0.7% to 158.85 per dollar.
Bitcoin, the largest traded cryptocurrency, fell 0.2% to $70,340.29.
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