DJIA up 9.58 points (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - New York, 04 Jun - US shares were trading mostly lower at midday as investors geared up for manufacturing and jobs data amid growing jitters over the state of the economy.

A worse-than-expected ISM report yesterday became the latest in a series of data showing the US manufacturing sector was under some strain, prompting concerns over economic slowdown and even recession.

Manufacturing has been hit hard by high interest rates aimed at taming inflation with many businesses choosing to delay investment cycles.

On the data front, US factory orders rose 0.7% month on month to 588.2 billion dollars in April, matching forecasts. While US job openings in April unexpectedly slipped to 8.059 million from 8.355 million the month before. Economists were instead expecting 8.370 million openings.

The jobs update is a precursor to the key labour report on Friday. The labor market is key to the debate about when the Fed can start cutting interest rates and whether it will be able to engineer a soft landing - taming inflation without triggering a recession.

On the stocks front, video retailer GameStop were down 2.6% after a post on the Reddit account of Keith Gill, the man who inspired the 2021 short squeeze on meme shares, said he remained committed to the stock. Intel shares were little changed after the company presented new artificial intelligence chips designed to compete with rivals Nvidia and AMD.

On the earnings front, companies on the docket today include Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

At 1622 GMT, the Dow Jones was gaining 9.58 points, or 0.02%, at 38,580.61 points.

The S&P 500 was 11.44 points, or 0.22%, lower at 5,271.96 points.

The Nasdaq was losing 30.06 points, or 0.19%, at 16,796.47 points.

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(RADIOCOR) 04-06-24 17:23:57 (0547) 5 NNNN