Stocks Opened Little Changed after Strong Retail Sales

U.S. stocks opened little changed on Friday after an upbeat reading on U.S. retail sales. The Dow industrial Average lately fell 22.22 points, or 0.13%, to 17,698.28. The S&P 500 was down 1.97 points, or 0.10%, to 2,062.14. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.89 points, or 0.04%, to 4,739.22.

Sales at retailers jumped in April by the most in a year, indicating consumer spending will help the U.S. economy recover from an early-year slowdown. Purchases climbed 1.3 percent last month, the biggest gain since March 2015.

Prices charged by U.S. manufacturers, farmers and other producers rose for the first time since January, lifted by higher costs for gas, steel and medicines. The Labor Department said Friday that the producer price index increased 0.2 percent in April.

Oil prices fell on Friday as OPEC became the latest organisation to indicate that the global supply glut was set to ease. At around 1200 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in June was down 46 cents at $46.24 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for July dropped 43 cents to $47.65 a barrel .

OPEC pointed to a larger oil supply surplus on the market this year as lifting of sanctions on Iran helps boost its output, making up for outages within the group and losses in outside producers hurt by the collapse in prices.

Apple Inc said on Thursday it has invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, a move that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said would help the company better understand the critical Chinese market.

J.C. Penney Co. on Friday reported an unexpected decline in revenue in the first quarter of the year. In all for the quarter, Penney’s loss narrowed to $68 million, or 22 cents a share, from $150 million, or 49 cents a share, a year earlier. Sales slipped 1.6% to $2.81 billion.