S&P 500 opens modestly higher, rising US T-bond yields boost financial stocks

• Wall Street's main indexes opened mixed on Thursday.
• Financials stocks push higher on the back of rising US T-bond yields.
• Technology shares trade in the red after the opening bell.

Major equity indexes in the US opened mixed on Thursday following the latest batch of US data. As of writing, the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.3% at 13,660, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rising 0.6% at 34,530 and the S&P 500 was rising 0.23% at 4,205.

Earlier in the day, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that it left the annualized real GDP growth in Q1 unchanged at 6.4% in its second estimate. Other data showed that the weekly Initial Jobless Claims fell to 406,000 from 444,000 and Durable Goods Orders declined by 1.3% in April, missing the market expectation for an increase of 0.7%.

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the Financials Index is the best-performer after the opening bell, rising 1% on the back of a 2% increase in the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond yield. On the other hand, the Technology Index is losing 0.16%. 

S&P 500 chart (daily)