DJIA down 0.20% (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - New York, 02 Jul - US shares opened lower as investors geared up for the week's first batch of jobs data and comments from the Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell.

As the second half gets under way, monetary policy remains the key theme as investors try to fathom out whether the Fed has leeway to cut rates this year or not.

Stubborn inflation has led the central bank to put back the timetable for easing its policy and prompted traders to recalculate their expectations for the number of rate cuts this year.

At a panel discussion scheduled today, alongside other policymakers including ECB President Christine Lagarde, Powell is expected to discuss the impact of high interest rates on the economy.

Today's JOLTS job openings survey meanwhile is due out later and is expected to show openings fell to 7.960 million in May from 8.059 million the previous month.

Jobs are 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, large caps like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon were lower in early trade after posting gains the previous session. AI darling Nvidia was also down 2% while electric car maker Tesla was up more than 5% after a good quarterly update on deliveries.

Markets will close early tomorrow and will remain closed on July 4 for Independence Day.

Just after the opening bell the Dow Jones was down 79.67 points, or 0.20%, at 39,089.85, the S&P 500 was down 16.51 points, or 0.30%, at 5,458.58 while the Nasdaq was down 75.19 points, or 0.42%, at 17,804.11.

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(RADIOCOR) 02-07-24 15:38:15 (0510) 5 NNNN