LIVE MARKETS-US equities are a choppy mix with data and tech weighing

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US EQUITIES ARE A CHOPPY MIX WITH DATA, TECH WEIGHING

Wall Street had a rocky and choppy start to the day with mixed economic data and headlines.

First, U.S. private payrolls data showed an unexpected jobs decline in November and then this news was followed by a report from The Information that Microsoft MSFT.O lowered its AI software sales quotas as customers were resisting newer products.

ADP's employment report showed a decrease of 32,000 in private payrolls last month after an upwardly revised 47,000 increase in October. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 10,000 increase after a previously reported 42,000 rebound in October.

While futures had been pointing upwards they went into reverse about a half hour before the open, around the time of the report about Microsoft, which cited two sales people in the Azure cloud unit. They said the rare quota change came after many sales staff missed goals in the fiscal year that ended in June.

Investors have been super jittery recently about any signs of waning interest in AI amid high valuations in stocks that have been benefiting from the promise of AI-related investments.

While most S&P 500 .SPX industry sectors are gaining, the weakness in heavyweight technology .SPLRCT, down 0.6%, is enough to keep Nasdaq .IXIC in varying shades of red. The benchmark S&P index is flirting with green though and the Dow .DJI is eking out a small gain with advances in some healthcare stocks along with Nike NKE.N and McDonald's MCD.N helping to counter tech losses.

While tech led sector decliners, energy .SPNY, up more than 1%, is the biggest gainer.

Still at 10.00 a.m. ET, even Nasdaq started paring losses as Institute for Supply Management (ISM) services sector data came in stronger than expected. But this was after S&P Global numbers came in below prior prints.

Here is your morning snapshot from 10:25 a.m. ET/1525 GMT:

(Sinéad Carew)

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