Following a lackluster beginning and a sustained period of decline, there was a brief moment of recovery for U.S. stocks in the last hour of trading, but this failed to find steady backing, leading to a marginal loss by Monday's close.
Throughout the day's trading session, the mood remained apprehensive due to a notable lack of substantial U.S. economic data. As a consequence, traders adopted a cautious approach, mainly staying on the sidelines, awaiting a number of key events taking place during the week.
All the major indices concluded in negative figures. The Dow closed down by 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 concluded its trading day lower by 67.43 points or 0.41 percent at 16,207.51.
Attention will be focused on the congressional testimony of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for indications of the projected direction of interest rates. Powell is scheduled 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 set to release its report documenting the activity of the service sector for the month of February. The Labor Department's employment data report is due later in the week on Friday. It is predicted to indicate an employment increase of 200,000 jobs in February, following the escalation of 353,000 jobs in January.
The upcoming week also anticipates the release of other vital reports such as factory orders, private sector employment, weekly jobless claims and the U.S. trade deficit as well as the Fed's Beige Book.
Notably, Tesla experienced over a 7 percent decrease. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Target, Alphabet, Pfizer, Apple Inc., Nike, and Merck suffered losses ranging from 2 to 4 percent. In contrast, Intel, Nvidia, IBM, Bank of America, Ford Motor, Qualcomm, eBay, Walt Disney, General Electric, Wells Fargo, Costco, and Citigroup recorded strong gains.
In the global context, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region saw mostly positive results on Monday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.5 percent and China's Shanghai Composite Index improved by 0.4 percent. European markets, contrarily, largely ended lower with the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index experiencing a 0.55 percent decrease, Germany's DAX Index sliding by 0.11 percent, while France's CAC 40 bucked the trend with a gain of 0.28 percent. The pan-European Stoxx 600 notched a negligible decrease of 0.03 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries retreated after notable gains in recent sessions, pushing the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, the direction of which is inverse to its price, up to 4.222 percent.
