US stocks subdued during early trade, on track for weekly declines

On the last trading day of the week, major US equity indices witnessed weaker opening on downbeat US economic data and renewed political uncertainty. 

According to the data released by the Commerce Department, retail sales rose 0.4% in April, below 0.6% expected. Meanwhile, inflation report showed headline CPI rose 0.4% m-o-m during April but the yearly pace eased to 2.2% from 2.4% previous. The bigger disappointment came from core numbers, with the yearly core CPI dropping below the Fed's target rate of 2.0% to 19-month lows, clearly pointing to easing inflationary pressure. 

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Markets also seems to have turned cautious in wake of the US President Donald Trump's abrupt firing of the FBI Director James Comey, which some analyst now think could make it even harder for Trump to push his pro-growth economic policies through congress.

At the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down around 30-points to 20887, while the broader S&P 500 Index lost over 4-points to 2390. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index traded marginally lower by 2-points at 6114. With today's minor losses, all the three major indices remain on track for weekly declines anywhere in the range of 0.2% to 0.4%.