Wall Street opens mostly lower on risk-aversion

US stock indices opened lower, led down by consumer and manufacturing stocks, and shrugging off earlier strong US consumer sentiment data according to University of Michigan's survey. 

Similarly, markets await Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan's speech at the Dallas County Community College, with investors looking for anew clues about the future of monetary policy and whether we'll see a third rate hike this year. 

Earlier this week, the Fed released the minutes of the July 25-26 meeting, at which policymakers voted to maintain interest rates at between 1.0% and 1.25%, and asserting the normalizing plans of the bank's massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet despite recent concerns about softening inflation. 

US president Donald Trump dissolved two business and manufacturing advisory councils earlier this week after a wave of CEOs quit them in protest of Trump's failure to quickly condemn White supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia.  

These tensions forced back to the surface concerns about Trump's agenda, including his promises to cut taxes and regulations and expand infrastructure spending, and to repeal and replace the current healthcare system known as Obamacare. 

Consequently, investors shifted liquidity to safe havens such as gold, which surged past $1,300 for the first time in nine month. 

As of 03:43 GMT, Standard and Poor's 500 fell 0.16%, or 3.85 points to 2,426.16, while Dow Jones declined 0.27%, or 57.71 points to 21,693.02. 

Tech-heavy NASDAQ shed a measly 0.02%, or 1.10 points to 6,220.81.