U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping around 250 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.75% to 32,971.43 while the NASDAQ fell 1.15% to 10,357.12. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.87% to 3,815.69.

Check This Out: 5 Most Cheap Real Estate Stocks You Should Think About

Leading and Lagging Sectors

In trading on Friday, communication services shares fell 1.3%.

Top Headline

The Chicago PMI rose to 44.9 points in December from 37.20 points in the prior month, which was the weakest reading since June 2020.

Equities Trading UP

Equities Trading DOWN

Also Check This Out: Top 5 Financial Stocks That May Collapse

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.1% to $79.24 while gold traded down 0.3% at $1,821.50.

Silver traded down 2% to $23.755 on Friday while copper fell 0.4% to $ 3.8070.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.9%, London’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.8% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.7%. The German DAX dropped 1.1%, French CAC 40 fell 1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.9%.

Spanish current account surplus narrowed to EUR 2.7 billion in October, from EUR 3.5 billion in the year-ago month. The annual inflation rate in Spain eased to 5.8% in December from 6.8% a month ago. The Nationwide House Price Index in the UK rose by 2.8% year-over-year in December.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed higher on Friday, with the Japan’s Nikkei rising 0.01%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.20%, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.51%.

India's fiscal deficit increased to INR 9.78 trillion in April-November compared to INR 6.96 trillion in the year-ago period. Chinese current account surplus widened to $144.3 billion in the third quarter versus $82.6 billion surplus in the year-ago period.

Economics

The Chicago PMI rose to 44.9 points in December from 37.20 points in the prior month, which was the weakest reading since June 2020.

Now Read This: Dow Surges Over 300 Points, Market Volatility Decreasess

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 102,477,920 cases with around 1,117,750 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,679,260 cases and 530,690 deaths, while France reported over 39,270,370 COVID-19 cases with 161,840 deaths. In total, there were at least 664,190,060 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,694,450 deaths.