Wall Street stocks opened lower on Monday amid lingering uncertainty over US President Donald Trump's trade policy as markets looked ahead to major earnings later in the week.

Besides trade, markets have been unnerved by Trump's broadsides against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, said Adam Sarhan of 50 Park Investments.

"Nobody knows what's going to happen going forward," Sarhan said. "And the fear that, we might actually have a recession unfold is stronger than anything else right now."

About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones was down 1.1 percent at 38,705.

The S&P 500 declined 1.3 percent to 5,213, while the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1.7 percent to 16,015.

Among individual companies, Netflix jumped 2.7 percent following better-than-expected results as revenues rose following subscription price hikes.

This week's earnings calendar includes reports from Tesla, Boeing and Procter & Gamble.

Also on the agenda will be the annual spring meetings in Washington at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. (AFP)