With an interest rate rise expected in the near future and potentially influential job stats due at the end of this week, the daily Wall Street cut-n-thrust barely gets a look in at the moment.
The Dow Jones open just a sliver higher on Wednesday, at 17,880, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq benchmarks similarly began unremarkably at 2,100 and 5,167 respectively.
Although Friday’s non-farm payrolls are the main event in terms of economic statistics, traders will no doubt note that a precursor – the ADP National Employment Report – showed an increase of around 217,000 private jobs last month.
Elsewhere, Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) stock was little moved by the headlines that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to give away 99% of his shares.
Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), however, rose some 5.5% amid reports it may be selling its core internet business.
Microchip-maker Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), meanwhile, was another in focus tech stock after it unveiled a patent licensing deal with a Chinese smartphone maker.