07:09 AM EDT, 06/03/2024 (MT Newswires) -- US equity investors will be watching for not only the non-farm payrolls and ISM manufacturing and services data this week but also share-price moves in the artificial intelligence space, which continues to boost the technology sector.

* A busy week for data kicks off Monday with the manufacturing ISM survey and the equivalent services index coming on Wednesday. Expectations are that ISM manufacturing for May will remain marginally in contraction, according to a note from Scotiabank.

* Most attention will be on the May labor market report on Friday, with the non-farm payrolls expected to have grown close to the more moderate pace of 175,000 seen in April after averaging 269,000 in Q1, according to a note from Daiwa Capital.

* "US payrolls might have a hint of Canada to them," Derek Holt, head of capital market economics at Scotiabank, said in a note. Canadians have been used to soaring population growth for quite a while now, but it's a more recent phenomenon in the US. More rapid population growth may be enough to keep the non-farm payrolls rising at a "guesstimated" 205,000 pace on Friday, with wage growth expected to hover just shy of 4% year over year.

* "Unlike Canada, however, the US is paying for its wage gains through productivity growth," Holt said. "The Fed may, therefore, be less concerned about the wage-price connections net of productivity considerations than the Bank of Canada."

* Shares of Nvidia ( NVDA ) were up 2.9% to $1,127.59 in premarket activity on Monday. The company announced blowout fiscal Q1 earnings and a 10-for-1 stock split after the bell on May 22. The strong move in the company's shares has not only boosted the Nasdaq, which surpassed the 17,000 mark for the first time last week, but it has also resulted in a rally among companies that the market perceives to be the beneficiaries of the AI race.