(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Milano, 17 nov - US futures are muted at the start of a week dominated by key AI and retail earnings and the release of September's payrolls report held up by the government shutdown.

Wall Street ended a volatile week of trading on Friday with the main indexes little changed. The Dow was up 0.3% for the week, the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.4% while the S&P 500 was virtually unchanged.

With federal offices open for business after the 43-day shutdown, the government is due to publish the jobs report for September on Thursday. The data, originally slated for release at the start of October, is eagerly awaited by the market ahead of the Federal Reserve's last monetary policy meeting in December.

A swathe of Fed policymakers have recently signalled a more cautious approach to interest rate cuts until more evidence is collected on inflation and labor market trends.

The main corporate news of the week will be Nvidia earnings due on Wednesday as investors wrestle with doubts over valuations and the staying power of the AI play. A string of big retail results, including Walmart and Home Depot, will also be monitored for clues on how the US consumer is faring.

On the stocks front, shares in Alphabet were up 4.2% in premarket trade after Berkshire Hathaway said it had taken a stake in the company last quarter.

Futures on the Dow Jones were down 8.00 points, or 0.0%, S&P 500 futures were up 9.50 points, or 0.14%, while futures on.

the Nasdaq were up 72.75 points, or 0.29%.

(RADIOCOR) 17-11-25 13:55:23 (0349) 5 NNNN