Stocks waver at open, Amazon and Microsoft climb higher

Yahoo Finance Live’s Brad Smith breaks down how stocks are moving after the opening bell.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JULIE HYMAN: All right. Well, we got the opening bell coming our way in just a few seconds here. And futures have been [INAUDIBLE] some of those declines as we've been getting closer to the opening bell. But it looks like we could still end up in the red. We've got the Manhattan Borough commissioner ringing the opening bell here this morning, John Raine, as we get underway. We had a positive start to the year. If you look at the first five trading days of the year, that tends to augur how the year is going to be. We had gains overall in those first five trading days of the year. So we'll see.

BRIAN SOZZI: Then look what happened.

JULIE HYMAN: We'll see. We'll see. We'll see what that means. Yes, we have a little bit of a decline thus far in today's session. But we'll see. And, you know, the comments from Fed Chair Jay Powell, the published comments, I believe he's-- either hasn't begun to speak yet or he's about to begin to speak in Sweden, not really having anything market moving necessarily, just re-emphasizing defending what the Fed has done before.

BRAD SMITH: [INAUDIBLE]

JULIE HYMAN: Bless.

BRAD SMITH: [INAUDIBLE]

JULIE HYMAN: [INAUDIBLE] over at--

BRIAN SOZZI: Is that French?

JULIE HYMAN: --Janney Montgomery Scott--

BRAD SMITH: Oh, yeah.

BRIAN SOZZI: [INAUDIBLE]

JULIE HYMAN: --tweeted. [INAUDIBLE] was his description of it. And it looks like we have some of that commentary happening over in Sweden. We'll see if we get anything from the Q&A. Maybe that will--

BRIAN SOZZI: There's our guy, Lord Mervyn King, friend of Yahoo Finance. Good to see him up there rocking it.

BRAD SMITH: All right. Well, we'll see if investors deem this a nothing burger or if it's a something that comes out of Fed Chair Jay Powell as he speaks in Sweden. Taking a look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average here on the morning, that flat's just barely to the downside. So we'll keep a close eye on that, just five points lower here out of the gate. NASDAQ Composite, you're seeing that in the red as well. For the tech-heavy average, it's down by about 2/10 of a percent. We'll round that off to just about 16, 17 points in the red.

And then the S&P 500, you're also seeing that down by about one point. Let's give you a view of this chart-- well, populated. Over the past four days, it's higher, net higher, by about 1% for the S&P 500. And then the NASDAQ Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as the S&P just barely slips into or actually makes a move into positive territory, so does the Dow. That is now higher. So some early day hyperwaffling we might see here. We'll see exactly where things start to really gain some momentum and settle here. But as of right now, just flat for the Dow and the S&P 500 and oscillating.

But also taking a look at some of the sector activity that we're seeing early in today's trading session, we are mixed right now. For the 11 S&P 500 sectors, energy is the leader. That's up by about 7/10 of a percent. However, communication services, you're seeing that pull up the caboose. It's down right now by about half a percent. Let's take a look at the NASDAQ 100 here.

And for those megacap tech stocks, out of the gate this morning at least, you've got Apple fractionally higher. We were just discussing some of the moves there with regard to its chip manufacturing ambitions in the future. Amazon, that's up by about 9/10 of a percent. Microsoft, you're seeing that catch a bid to the tune of about 1%. And then Google or Alphabet-- you know what I love to say, Alpha Google-- right now down by about 2% out of the gate.

JULIE HYMAN: Alpha Google, hyperwaffling--

BRAD SMITH: Hey.

BRIAN SOZZI: Caboose.

JULIE HYMAN: --we like all of your catchphrases.

BRIAN SOZZI: I love them.

JULIE HYMAN: I'm a big fan of the Brad Smith catchphrases.