Stock Market Open: US Shares Higher On Quadruple Witching Day

Stocks opened higher Friday as quadruple witching kicked in coinciding with a rebalancing of an S&P 500 that has been flirting with record highs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 57 points in midday trading or 0.21% to 27,152.015. The S&P 500 was 0.13% higher at 3,010.79 and the Nasdaq slid 0.2% 8,166.47

Market liquidity tends to spike when options and futures on indexes and stocks expire, spurring trading volume as large derivative positions roll over.

The Federal Reserve, which lowered interest rates by a quarter point on Wednesday, readied $75 billion more in an overnight repo operation, following a $125 billion injection earlier this week. It was the first time in a decade that the central bank moved to inject funds into overnight borrowing to keep interest rates in check. The overnight rate soared to 10% before the Fed acted. Loan rates, however, remained elevated.

The move comes as pressure built for the Fed to create a permanent fix by increasing Treasury holdings to boost reserves, which were at their lowest point since 2011 as the central bank moved to reduce its portfolio.

“The Fed needs to do at least double what they offered now and maybe even be more vigilant and do something even more significant,” Thomas Simons, senior economist at Jefferies LLC, told Bloomberg. “This attitude of trying to kind-of fix the problem is not great.”

The tumult added to investor hopes the Fed would cut interest rates again this year although Wednesday’s statement gave no hint further cuts were in the offing.

In Japan, the Bank of Japan cut its bond purchases by $463 billion in hopes of creating a steeper curve.

Facebook (FB)creator Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance in Washington Thursday in a bid to deflect criticism of the social media giant’s privacy practices. Zuckerberg met with President Trump and made an appearance on Capital Hill where Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.) urged the sale of WhatsApp and Instagram and the construction of a firewall between Facebook and its other platforms, a suggestion Zuckerberg rejected.

Global markets were mostly higher Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was off 0.13% but both Japan’s Nikkei 225 and China’s Shanghai Composite gained, 0.16% and 0.24%, respectively. Australia’s S&P/ASX rose 0.2%.

In Europe, the London FTSE closed off 0.16%, the German DAX gained 0.08% and the French CAC added 0.56%.

The British pound lost 0.4% against the dollar while the euro was off 0.21%. The U.S. dollar index gained 0.35%.

Oil futures were higher. Crude oil gained 1.67% to $59.10 a barrel and Brent crude rose to $64.98, up 0.9%. Gold was higher while silver dipped.