Wall Street opens mixed with strong GDP, oil decline

NEW YORK (AA) – Wall Street opened mixed Friday as the decline in oil prices was balanced with the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) beating expectations.

The U.S. economy grew by 2.9 percent in the third quarter of the year, the Department of Commerce announced earlier Friday.

The data not only beat a market expectation of 2.5 percent increase, but it was also the strongest quarterly gain since the third quarter of 2014.

As a result, the Dow Jones added 30 points to open at 18,200.

Oil prices, however, were on decline, bringing the market down.

At the first bell on Wall Street, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was trading at $49.15 per barrel with a 1 percent loss. International benchmark Brent crude was at $50.05 -- a 0.8 percent loss.

The S&P 500 lost three points to begin the final trading day of the week at 2,129. The Nasdaq was down 21 points to 5,194 -- mostly due to tech stocks.

Amazon's stock price fell almost 5 percent to $778.46 a share after Wall Street opened Friday following the e-commerce giant's third quarter results Thursday which were below market expectations.