U.S. Stocks Retreat After Positive Start, Close On Mixed Note

U.S. stocks ended on a mixed note on Monday with investors largely making cautious moves as they looked ahead to speeches from several Fed officials, including Chairman Jerome Powell, and continued to keep an eye on the developments surrounding debt-laden China Evergrande.

Among the major averages, the Dow, which rose to 35,061 by mid morning, closed with a gain of 71.37 point or 0.21 percent at 34,869.37. The S&P 500, moved between 4,436.19 and 4,457.30, settled with a loss of 12.37 points or 0.28 percent at 4,443.11, while the Nasdaq settled at 14,969.97, losing 77.73 points or 0.52 percent.

Financials and energy stocks gained in strength, while technology stocks drifted lower, weighed down by rising treasury yields.

A report released by the Commerce Department showed new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods increased by much more than expected in the month of August, jumping by 1.8 percent, after rising by a revised 0.5 percent in July.

Economists had expected durable goods orders to increase by 0.6 percent compared to the 0.1 percent dip that had been reported for the previous month.

Excluding a spike in orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders edged up by 0.2 percent in August after climbing by 0.8 percent in July.

Chevron, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs rose 2.3 to 2.5 percent. Walt Disney, Caterpillar, Boeing, 3M, Intel and IBM closed on a positive note.

Salesforce.com, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Alphabet, PepsiCo, Cisco and Apple ended notably lower.

Dollar Tree, Tesla, AMD, Walgreen Boots, eBay, Intel and Sirius XM closed with sharp moderate gains.

In overseas trading, Asian stocks ended on a mixed note on Monday as investors weighed the implications of surging energy prices and risks from the Chinese financial system.

The major European stocks closed slightly higher with investors largely making cautious moves, reacting to the results of the German federal election, and ECB President Christine Lagarde’s comments that inflation in the euro area could exceed projections but price increases are likely be temporary.

Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats defeated Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in an extremely tight German federal election, setting in motion what could be months of complex coalition talks to decide who will lead Europe’s biggest economy.

The left wing Die Linke party fell below the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament.

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