NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks were mostly lower in early trading Monday ahead of a heavy calendar of news events this week that includes Apple earnings and the October US jobs report.
The Federal Reserve will be a key focus, with a two-day meeting culminating with a monetary policy announcement Wednesday, and the White House expected to announce its pick to lead the US central bank.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2 percent to 23,379.67.
The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.2 percent to 2,576.37, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.1 percent to 6,709.19.
The downcast open to the trading week came amid edginess after Paul Manafort, the former head of President Donald Trump’s campaign, was indicted in the Russia probe, and amid worries about the messy debate over the future of Catalonia and Spain.
While those are indeed issues for investors, analysts also said the market was due for a pullback following a succession of records over the last month. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 finished at all-time highs on Friday.
In merger news, homebuilder CalAtlantic Group shot up 22.7 percent on news it agreed to be acquired by Lennar in a transaction valued at about $9.3 billion. Lennar dropped 2.2 percent.
Power company Dynegy jumped 12.5 percent after it reached an agreement to be acquired by Vistra Energy in a deal expected to have enterprise value greater than $20 billion. Vistra dropped 2.4 percent.
Source: Brecorder.com
