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U.S. stocks open lower after ECB-triggered strong gains

Xinhua, January 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks opened lower Friday following the previous day' s big rally boosted by the European Central Bank' s (ECB' s) bigger-than-expected quantitative easing (QE) program.

The ECB announced Thursday that it will start QE by purchasing public and private securities in a bid to address prolonged low inflation in the eurozone.

ECB President Mario Draghi said at a press conference following the bank's policy meeting that "the combined monthly purchases of public and private sector securities will amount to 60 billion euros. They are intended to be carried out until end-September 2016." The size of the eurozone QE program beat market expectations of a 50-billion-euro monthly purchasing program.

Thursday' s big rally brought both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite Index back to slightly positive territory for the year.

However, investors were assessing if the ECB-inspired surging was too much and shifted their focus to fourth-quarter corporate earnings.

General Electric said its fourth quarter industrial segment profit rose 9 percent, while its quarterly revenues jumped 4 percent to 42.0 billion U.S. dollars. The company' s shares gained 0.49 percent to trade at 24.40 dollars per share early Friday.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 19.75 points, or 0.11 percent, to 17,794.23. The S&P 500 fell 5.32 points, or 0.26 percent, to 2,057. 83. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 6.73 points, or 0.14 percent, to 4,743.66. Endi