US stocks have opened on the back foot after the Empire State general business index fell sharply into negative territory.
Expectations of a reading of +4.5 were confounded by August's level of -14.9, which was a massive swing from July's reading of +3.9, and the worst level since April 2009, when the world was just beginning to emerge from the credit crunch.
A positive number indicates improving conditions, and the only consolation for the horror story of the August index level was the expectation that it would stave off the Fed's decision to hike interest rates.
The major benchmarks initially gave back all of Friday's gains and a bit more, before recovering some equilibrium, with the Nasdaq Composite even struggling into positive territory, up four points at 5,052.
The S&P 500 is off a point at 2,090 while the Dow Jones is down 32 at 17,445.
In corporate news, perfumier Estee Lauder (NYSE:EL) was off 3% despite topping market forecasts with its quarterly earnings.
Investors took fright at a downbeat outlook statement.
Also on the slide was computer memory maker Micron (NASDAQ:MU), which shed 1.65 after Wedbush Securities chopped the price target from US$26 to US$19, which is still a few dollars above the current share price.
In contrast, electric car maker Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) benefited from an upgrade by banking heavyweight Morgan Stanley (MS).
The shares motored 3.5% forward after MS upped its price target by two-thirds.