US stocks dip despite big gains for Wal-Mart, Monsanto

Shares of Wal-Mart Stores jumped on solid earnings on Thursday and Monsanto surged on merger talks with Germany's Bayer as US stocks opened lower.

Analysts said the market was fixated on Federal Reserve meeting minutes released Wednesday that lifted the odds the US central bank will increase interest rates in June.

Dow member Wal-Mart gained 7.8 percent as earnings for its first quarter easily topped analyst expectations based on a solid one percent gain in US store sales.

Agricultural giant Monsanto climbed 5.7 percent after acknowledging it received an unsolicited bid from Bayer to create a global player in pesticides, seeds and genetically modified crops.

Both Monsanto and Bayer emphasized that the talks were still only exploratory at this stage.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 17,455.40, down 0.4 percent.

The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.4 percent to 2,038.90, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.4 percent at 4,722.18.