NEW YORK, July 2 — Wall Street stocks retreated following a choppy session Wednesday as Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh emphasised the need to tame inflation ahead of closely-watched US jobs data.

Appearing on a panel with other leading central bankers, Warsh emphasised he was committed to returning inflation to the Fed’s two per cent target.

“We’re going to deliver price stability in the US,” Warsh said. “That’s what this committee has signed up to do.”

Warsh delivered a similar message at a press conference last month following his first Fed meeting as chairman.

The comments came ahead of Thursday’s release of monthly US jobs data for June. Analysts expect the US economy added 110,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3 per cent.

Payroll firm ADP estimated the private sector added 98,000 jobs last month, according to data released Wednesday.

In the first session of the third quarter, US equities showed signs of fatigue after a blowout second quarter. All three major indices finished lower, led by the Nasdaq, which fell 0.7 per cent.

The tech-focused index outperformed the Dow and S&P 500 in the second quarter. Semiconductor shares were among those selling off on Wednesday.

“There’s a bit of a rotation going on in the tech sector, and I don’t think it’s terribly concerning,” said Tom Cahill of of Ventura Wealth Management.

Cahill described Warsh’s commentary as balanced, with bullish commentary about artificial intelligence countering the cautious take on inflation. Some markets watchers have said a robust jobs report could hasten Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

But Cahill said of the jobs report, “it would take a very strong number, extremely strong number, for the market to be bothered by it.”

European stocks ended the day mostly lower.

Asian stock markets made some gains after Wall Street’s strong performance on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, oil prices dropped as markets greeted indirect talks between the United States Iran in Qatar.

The two sides have exchanged fire in recent days despite a memorandum of understanding to halt the Middle East war.

Iran had insisted there would be no direct negotiations in Doha on the deal to end the war.

The Qatar discussions, focused on the details of the MoU, were to “build on the progress made at the Lake Lucerne Summit”, a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Among individual companies, Facebook parent Meta jumped 8.8 per cent after a report said the social media giant is preparing to launch a cloud computing business that would sell AI computing power to outside customers.

The report, published by Bloomberg, said Meta is developing plans to compete directly with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud by monetising the excess computing capacity it has built up while racing to develop artificial intelligence. — AFP