Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — The U.S. stock market opened lower Wednesday due to the loss of peace from Tuesday and continued Russian aggressions in Ukraine. The latest fourth-quarter GDP data revision contained an upward revision that included a key indicator of inflation for the period. This again raised fears of inflation.

At 35,289 point by 9:45 ET (1345 GMT), it was flat at 5 points. The broad-based index was at 0.2%, while the was at 0.3%.

An earlier statement by the Ukrainian government claimed that Russia had intensified and renewed attacks on the east. It was this that led to Western fears that Russia’s announcement of de-escalation (after some disastrous battlefield reverses), was nothing but a tactic to get time for regroupment. More comments were made by the leader of Russia’s Istanbul negotiating team. Optimists are pointing to these remarks.

News from closer home is more positive. ADP’s monthly report about private-sector employment showed that 455,000 jobs had been created in March. That’s a slight decrease over February’s figure. The Labor Department released its monthly job openings survey Tuesday, which showed that the number of available jobs was still near record highs with no signs of a slowdown.