US open: Mixed trading at the bell as investors await trade developments

US stocks saw mixed returns at the open on Friday as investors eyed the release of the latest non-farm payrolls report and watched out for trade developments.

At 1530 BST, the Dow Jones was down 0.16% to 25,953.10, while the S&P 500 was flat at 2,877.93 as the Nasdaq moved ahead 0.33% to 7,948.18.

Relations between the US and China were expected to sour further if Trump goes ahead with his plans to slap tariffs on another $200bn of Chinese goods.

Meanwhile, a report out on Thursday suggested that the President could be setting his sites on Japan next.

US talks with Canada were also ongoing, with Canada's foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington to continue thrashing out a NAFTA deal.

Oanda analyst Craig Erlam said: "Months of discussions with the US' NAFTA partners, the European Union and China have yet to deliver any results, although they may be close with Mexico and Canada having agreed new terms with the former. Should Trump manage to get this over the line prior to the mid-term, it may be enough to convince voters that his globally unpopular approach to renegotiations is working and the Republicans could reap the benefits."

On the data front, US job growth undershot forecasts last month, when revisions to figures for the prior two months are taken into account, even as wage pressures increased at their fastest clip since June 2009.

According to the Department of Labor, US non-farm payrolls increased by 201,000 in August, following a downwardly-revised print of 147,000 for July and of 208,000 for June.

Economists had forecast a rise of 191,000.

That came alongside a rise in average hourly earnings of 2.9% year-on-year (consensus: 2.8%), versus July's pace of 2.7%.

The labour force participation rate meanwhile declined by two-tenths of a percentage point to 62.7%, with the rate of unemployment unchanged from the month before at 3.9%, as expected.

In corporate news, Marvell Technology surged 5.34% in early trade, rebounding from a 10-month low following the release of its second-quarter results late on Thursday.

Elsewhere, Broadcom was up 7.25% after its third-quarter numbers late on Thursday, while Apple was 0.74% higher after the European Union approved the tech giant's acquisition of music discovery app Shazam on Thursday.

Tesla shares were down 5.50% following controversial CEO Elon Musk's appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast with everything from whiskey to weed to samurai swords to flamethrowers.