US stocks slipped on opening Tuesday after Moody's delivered debt downgrades and lowered outlooks to nine EU countries, casting a cloud over progress on Greece's debt deal.
At 1500 GMT, after a half hour of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 24.07 points (0.19 percent) to 12,849.97.
The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 3.88 (0.29 percent) to 1,347.89, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 6.55 (0.22 percent) to 2,924.84.
"Moderate weakness comes after stocks scored strong gains yesterday in response to approved austerity measures in Greece, only to be reminded of the precarious conditions in the rest of the eurozone by several debt rating downgrades by analysts at Moody's," said analysts at Briefing.com.
Stocks got help on the upside by new data on US retail sales in January, which grew 0.4 percent in a month, a pickup from December's flat performance.
Analysts had mixed views of the data: it was an upturn from the poor fourth quarter, but not as large as hoped.
"Despite the lower-than-expected total sales, 'core' retail sales, the trend-defining component, rebounded dynamically," said Harm Bandholz of Unicredit.
Goodyear, the tire maker, saw its shares sink 6.2 percent after missing expectations on its quarterly earnings report.
The company returned to the black helped by higher prices, earning a net profit of $18 million, compared to a $177 million loss a year earlier. But analysts had expected a $23 million earnings performance.
Online travel reservations firm Priceline added 2.0 percent after its nearly five percent surge Monday following a positive S&P report on its European subsidiary Booking.com.
Bond prices rose.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.96 percent from 1.99 percent Monday, while the 30-year slipped to 3.10 percent from 3.14 percent.
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
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