Stocks Opened Lower after Data

U.S. stocks opened lower on Wednesday with the government reporting retail sales fell 0.2% and producer prices declined 1% in May.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately fell 49.27 points, or 0.39%, to 12,524.53. The S&P 500 Index declined 5.91 points, or 0.45%, to 1,318.27. The Nasdaq Composite lost 8.94 points, or 0.31%, to 2,834.13.

The 0.2 percent decrease followed a similar decline in April that was previously reported as a gain, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington.

Lower costs for food and energy pulled the U.S. producer price index down 1.0% in May, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, in the biggest one-month drop in close to three years. Core producer prices, excluding volatile food and energy, rose 0.2%.

A German government spokesman Wednesday said worries about Italy are exaggerated and that Italy will be able to tackle its problems without European help.

When Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, appears today before the Senate Banking Committee to field questions about his bank’s $2 billion-and-climbing trading loss, people who know him well say they have little doubt how he will respond.