NEW YORK, Feb 3 (AFP) - US shares opened lower Thursday as Amazon's disappointing earnings weighed on sentiment and investors remained cautious ahead of the January employment report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 23.27 points (0.22 percent) to 10,573.52 and the Nasdaq composite shed 10.47 points (0.50 percent) to 2,064.59 in the first trades.
"We're looking at a fairly tight trading range for most of the session as the market prepares for the (January) unemployment data tomorrow," said Peter Cardillo, chief market analyst at SW Bach.
A preview of the employment data, the weekly report on jobless claims, was better than expected as new claims fell to 316,000. But a separate report showed US labor productivity cooled to a 0.8 percent growth pace, the lowest since early 2001.
But the tech sector was dragging the market lower with Amazon.com plunging as much as 16 percent in pre-opening trade after earnings fell short of expectations as higher sales and advertising costs and free shipping offers hit the company's bottom line.
02/03/2005 14:41 GMT - AFP