S&P 500 Index opens in red dragged by energy shares, tests 3,200

• Wall Street's main indexes opened in the negative territory.
• S&P 500 Index falls more than 1% as the worst-performing major sector.
• Upbeat Retail Sales data from US fails to improve market sentiment.

Major equity indexes in the United States started the day deep in the red on Thursday as investors adopt a cautious tone amid surging coronavirus cases. Reflecting the risk-off environment, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is up 3.5% on the day.

As of writing, the S&P 500 was down 0.75% at 3,202, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was losing 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite was falling 1% at 10,447.

Earlier in the day, the data published by the US Census Bureau revealed that Retail Sales in June rose by 7.5% to $524.3 billion. Although this reading came in higher than the market expectation of 5%, it failed to provide a boost to market sentiment.

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the Energy Index is down 1.6% on the day as the worst-performer. On the other hand, the defensive Utilities Index is up 0.4%.

S&P 500 chart (daily)