Wall Street opens slightly higher following mixed US data

• Retail Sales in US rose 0.3% in January as expected.
• Industrials Index opens in red as Industrial Production in US contracts.
• Falling US Treasury bond yields weigh on financials shares.

Wall Street's main indexes started the day slightly higher on Friday as investors assess the latest batch up of macroeconomic data releases from the US. Ahead of the long weekend, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is flat on the day while the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 are adding 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively.

Financial shares underperform

The data published by the US Census Bureau showed that Retail Sales in January rose 0.3% as expected but the Retail Sales Control Group dropped to 0% from 0.2%. Moreover, the Federal Reserve announced that industrial production declined 0.3% in January following December's 0.4% (revised from 0.3%) contraction.

Following the disappointing data, the S&P 500 Industrials Index opened the day in the negative territory before turning flat. In the meantime, pressured by a more-than-2% drop in the 10-year US Treasury bond yield, the Financials Index is down 0.15% in the early trade. On the other hand, the Real Estate Index is up 0.5% to lead the winners amond major S&P 500 sectors.