U.S. Stocks Close Lower After Cautious Session

U.S. stocks closed lower on Monday after spending much of the day’s session in negative territory as investors largely stayed cautious, reassessing the expected path of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes amid falling inflation expectations.

The major averages all ended in the red with the Nasdaq posting a more pronounced loss. The Dow ended down by 62.42 points or 0.2 percent at 31,438.26, coming off the day’s high of 31,598.59. The S&P 500 settled lower by 11.63 points or 0.3 percent at 3,900.11, while the Nasdaq closed lower by 83.07 points or 0.72 percent at 11,524.55.

Salesforce.com, Nike, Boeing, American Express, Walt Disney and 3M shed 1 to 2.5 percent. Shares of Spirit Airlines ended nearly 8% down after the company announced that it would accept Frontier Group’s latest takeover bid.

United Health and Chevron both ended nearly 2 percent up. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Merck and Caterpillar climbed 1.1 to 1.3 percent.

Shares of BioNTech climbed 7.2 percent, lifted by an announcement from the company that its Omicron-based Covid-19 booster improves immune response to that variant.

In U.S. economic news, New orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods increased by more than expected in the month of May, according to a report released by the Commerce Department.

The report showed durable goods orders climbed by 0.7 percent in May after rising by 0.4 percent in April. Economists had expected orders to inch up by 0.1 percent.

After reporting steep drops in U.S. pending home sales over the past several months, the National Association of Realtors released a report on Monday showing an unexpected rebound in pending home sales in the month of May.

A report from the National Association of Realtors showed the pending home sales index climbed 0.7 percent to 99.9 in May after plunging by 4 percent to a revised 99.2 in April. The increase surprised economists, who had expected pending home sales to tumbled by another 3.7 percent.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved notably higher during trading on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index jumped by 1.4 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index surged by 2.4 percent.

European stocks ended broadly higher. The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 0.52 percent. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 gained 0.69 percent and Germany’s DAX surged up 0.52 percent, while France’s CAC 40 ended 0.43 percent down, failing to hold early gains.

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