LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Wall Street was little changed amid thin trading conditions and in a vacuum in terms of economic data and with government debt markets closed on account of Columbus Day.
At 1850 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was marginally lower by 0.03% to 22,767.93, alongside a fall of 0.07% to 2,547.55 for the S&P 500 and a 0.02% dip on the Nasdaq Composite to 6,588.77.

From a sector standpoint, the softest areas of the market were: Drug retailers (-4.17%), Non-ferrous metals (-2.85%) and Food&Drug retailers (-2.30%).

To take note of, speaking in Montreal on Saturday, Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren cautioned that keeping interest rates in negative territory even as the job market tightened risked "unnecessarily shortening" the economic recovery.

On Friday, stocks edged lower after the latest non-farm payrolls report showed the US economy lost 33,000 jobs in September even as the unemployment rate fell to a 16-year low of 4.2%.

Economists had expected payrolls to grow by 90,000 and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.4%. Despite the disappointment, Friday's stock market losses were minimal as market participants had been pricing in an underwhelming print due to hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Konstantinos Anthis at ADS Securities said: "Moving forward, this week the dollar's price action will be dictated by the upcoming reports and how these will shape expectations regarding another rate hike from the Fed in December but also from any rising geopolitical risks. The Fed minutes scheduled for release on Wednesday are expected to reflect a positive bias on the progress of the domestic economy and the Retail Sales report at the end of the week is expected to print higher.

"Strong business activity last month and rising wage levels should send Retail Sales figures sharply higher which will be supportive of Fed's intention to raise rates again by the end of the year. To sum it all up, we believe that the bias for the dollar is positive and unless we see any fresh provocation from N. Korea the US currency should trade with a bullish tone throughout the next sessions."

On the corporate front, General Electric reversed course to trade lower as analysts at JP Morgan labeled news that some of its top executives were leaving a "clear negative".

Shares of AMC Entertaintment were also in the spotlight following a lacklustre movie theater debut at the weekend for "Blade Runner 2049".

Data centre company Switch Inc was under the cosh, however, after surging 23% in its trading debut on Friday.

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