U.S. Stocks Close Weak After Cautious Session

(RTTNews) - After a weak start and a subsequent long spell in negative territory, U.S. stocks briefly managed to turn positive in the final hour, but failed to find support and ended marginally down on Monday.

The mood was cautious right through the day's session due to a lack of major U.S. economic data. Traders largely stayed on the sidelines ahead of a slew of key events this week.

The major averages all ended in negative territory. The Dow ended down 97.55 points or 0.25 percent at 38,989.83. The S&P 500 settled with a loss of 6.13 points or 0.12 percent at 5,130.95, while the Nasdaq ended lower by 67.43 points or 0.41 percent at 16,207.51.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's congressional testimony will be in focus for clues about the outlook for interest rates. Powell is due to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the Institute for Supply Management is due to release its report on service sector activity in the month of February.

Later in the week, the Labor Department's report employment data is due on Friday. The report is expected to show employment jumped by 200,000 jobs in February after surging by 353,000 jobs in January.

Reports on factory orders, private sector employment, weekly jobless claims and the U.S. trade deficit are also due to be released this week along with the Fed's Beige Book.

Tesla dropped more than 7 percent. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Target, Alphabet, Pfizer, Apple Inc., Nike and Merck lost 2 to 4 percent.

Intel, Nvidia, IBM, Bank of America, Ford Motor, Qualcomm, eBay, Walt Disney, General Electric, Wells Fargo, Costco and Citigroup posted strong gains.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher during trading on Monday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index climbed by 0.5 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index rose by 0.4 percent.

Meanwhile, European markets mostly ended lower. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index ended down by 0.55 percent, the German DAX Index drifted down 0.11 percent, and France's CAC 40 gained 0.28 percent. The pan European Stoxx 600 edged down 0.03 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries gave back ground after moving notably higher over the past few sessions. The yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, moved up to 4.222 percent.