NEW YORK, Nov 29 — Wall Street stocks edged lower early today ahead of key releases on consumer health near the start of the important holiday shopping season.

Besides a reading from the Conference Board on consumer sentiment, today’s calendar includes a holiday sales update from the National Retail Federation that will cover the "Black Friday” kickoff to the year-end spending season.

Some other data points have suggested a solid start to the US festive period in terms of sales.

The holiday sales data comes ahead of a much-anticipated appearance tomorrow by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and critical US employment data on Friday.

About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1 per cent at 33,801.05.

The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.1 per cent to 3,960.55, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dipped 0.1 per cent to 11,043.75.

Data from Adobe showed the "Cyber Week” period from Thanksgiving to "Cyber Monday” brought in US$35.3 billion (RM159 billion) in sales, up four per cent from last year.

Shares of leading retailers were mixed early today, with Walmart and Target both in the red and Best Buy and Gap higher. — AFP