Major indices mixed early on as rising Treasury yields

Wall Street stocks were mixed early on Monday as bond yields rose and Chinese GDP numbers disappointed.

The Dow opened 42.30 points weaker on Monday, cutting into gains recorded at the tail end of last week on the back of a better than anticipated start to the third-quarter earnings season.

Dow was down 0.12% at 35,252.46, while the S&P 500 was 0.02% stronger at 4,472.14 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.09% firmer at 14,910.16.

In focus early on Monday, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note ticked up to above 1.58% at the start of the week, applying some pressure to tech shares as market participants looked to rotate out of growth stocks and pick up some more value-oriented positions.

Also weighing on sentiment at the open was news that Beijing had revealed that gross domestic product had fallen short of estimates in the third quarter, coming in at 4.9% annual growth, less than the 5.3% clip expected by economists.

The US industrial production dropped unexpectedly last month, according to the Department of Commerce, which revealed that, in seasonally adjusted terms, total output shrank at a month-on-month pace of 1.3%, compared to a 0.3% rise as forecast by economists. Manufacturing production dropped by 0.7% in comparison to the prior month, while mining output declined 2.3% and utilities fell 3.6%.
Elsewhere, homebuilder sentiment rebounded in October, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index, which rose four points to 80 as supply chain issues were offset by high buyer demand.
Still to come, the Federal Government’s monthly budget statement was prepped for publication at 1900 BST, and August foreign bond investment and overall net capital flows will follow at 2100 BST.
In the corporate space, Disney shares traded lower early on in the session after analysts at Barclays downgraded the stock, pointing to an expected slowdown in subscriber growth.
While things were fairly quiet on the earnings front on Monday, big-time names like Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, United Airlines and Procter & Gamble will report tomorrow, while Tesla, Verizon and IBM will publish their latest quarterly results before the week is out.