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| - Wall Street stocks paused near record levels early Monday ahead of key economic data later in the week, with a newly-tweaked Dow index edging lower. The final session of a heady August opened on a lackluster note as markets await employment data and updates on the manufacturing and services sectors in the coming days. About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.4 percent to 28,539.83. The broad-based S&P 500 was essentially flat at 3,507.31, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.3 percent at 11,729.11. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended at records Friday, the latest milestones in the wake of extraordinary fiscal and monetary measures to boost the coronavirus-battered US economy. On Monday, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida described as "critical" a shift in the US central bank's monetary policy to allow higher inflation to maximize employment. The Dow's new components, Amgen, Honeywell International and Salesforce, were all marginally lower in their first session in the blue-chip index. United Airlines also fell, shedding 1.8 percent as it announced it was eliminating change fees for travel within the United States, the latest concession by a carrier in the wake of a severe industry downturn due to Covid-19. jmb/cs
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