By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended a volatile trading session slightly lower on Monday after posting sharp gains the week before, while oil prices and Treasury yields rose.
Oil climbed following last week’s rout, as the Group of Seven nations promised to tighten the squeeze on Russia’s finances with new sanctions that include a plan to cap the price of Russian oil.
Investors have been hoping oil’s slide from three-month peaks hit earlier in June could ease overall inflation concerns and allow the U.S. Federal Reserve to tighten policy less aggressively than initially feared.
Still, data on Monday showed new orders for U.S.-made capital goods and shipments increased solidly in May, pointing to sustained strength in business spending on equipment in the second quarter.
Stocks moved between gains and losses during the session on Wall Street, with big growth shares leading the way down.
“It’s not shocking given we’re in a bear market that last week was a good week and this week is turning out to be a bad week,” said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which has about $50 million in assets under management.
But given recent strong selloffs, “flat to down a little is progress,” he said.
The S&P 500 earlier this month confirmed it is in a bear market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 62.42 points, or 0.2%, to 31,438.26, the S&P 500 lost 11.63 points, or 0.30%, to 3,900.11 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 83.07 points, or 0.72%, to 11,524.55.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.52% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.31%.
A further easing of COVID-19 restrictions in China helped to support global indexes.
Treasury yields climbed after the capital and durable goods orders surprised to the upside, but the sale of two- and five-year notes was weak.
The 10-year note rose 7 basis points to 3.194% and the two-year’s yield, which can herald rate expectations, gained 6.9 basis points to 3.126%.
Brent crude futures settled up $1.97, or 1.7%, at $115.09 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude closed up $1.95, or 1.8%, at $109.57.
In foreign exchange, Russia’s rouble was volatile as Russia defaulted on its international bonds for the first time in more than a century, the White House and Moody’s credit agency said.
Also, the U.S. dollar edged lower versus its major rivals as investors weighed expectations on inflation and rate hikes. The euro was helped by expectations that the European Central Bank will soon raise interest rates for the first time in more than a decade.
The dollar index fell 0.058%, with the euro up 0.23% to $1.0578.
Cryptocurrencies stumbled. Bitcoin last fell 0.59% to $20,905.04.
Spot gold dropped 0.2% to $1,822.89 an ounce.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York; Additional reporting by Danilo Masoni in Milan, Herbert Lash in New York and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Matthew Lewis)
