Banks help lead stocks lower in early trading on Wall Street

The Associated Press

Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street Friday, keeping the S&P 500 on course for its second weekly decline in a row. The benchmark index was off 0.2% in the early going. JPMorgan Chase was leading banks lower with a drop of 5.3% after reporting that its profits fell 14% in the latest quarter from a year earlier as its trading business slumped. Traders were also disappointed to see that retail sales sank 1.9% in December after Americans cut their spending in the face of product shortages, rising prices and the onset of the omicron variant. Treasury yields rose.