WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After ending last Friday's session in positive territory, the major U.S. stock indexes turned in a mixed performance during trading on Monday. While the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 saw further upside, the narrower Dow moved to the downside.
The Dow fell by 226.9 points or 0.5 percent to 47,6.68, but the S&P 500 rose 11.77 points or 0.2 percent to 6,851.97 and the Nasdaq climbed 109.77 points or 0.5 percent to 23,834.72.
The gain by the tech-heavy Nasdaq partly reflected a sharp increase by shares of Amazon (AMZN), with the online retail giant surging by 4.0 percent to a record closing high
Amazon extended last Friday's rally after announcing a $38 billion agreement with OpenAI that provides Amazon Web Services' world-class infrastructure to run and scale OpenAI's core artificial intelligence workloads.
AI darling and market leader Nvidia (NVDA) also jumped by 2.2 percent after software giant Microsoft (MSFT) revealed it has secured export licenses from the Trump administration to ship Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates.
On the other hand, a 4.1 percent plunge by shares of Merck (MRK) weighed on the Dow along with notable declines by Nike (NKE), 3M (MMM) and Chevron (CVX).
Traders may have been reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of payroll processor ADP's report on private sector employment on Wednesday.
With the ongoing government shutdown indefinitely delaying several key U.S. economic reports, the ADP report could shed light on the strength of the labor market amid uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates.
In U.S. economic news, the Institute for Supply Management released a report showing manufacturing activity unexpectedly contracted at a slightly faster rate in the month of October.
The ISM said its manufacturing PMI slipped to 48.7 in October after edging up to 49.1 in September, with a reading below 50 indicating contraction. Economists had expected the index to inch up to 49.5.
Sector News
Oil service stocks turned in a strong performance amid a modest increase by the price of crude oil, with the Philadelphia Oil Service Index jumping by 2.2 percent.
Considerable strength was also visible among retail stocks amid the surge by Amazon, driving the Dow Jones U.S. Retail Index up by 1.7 percent.
Computer hardware stocks also saw significant strength on the day, while housing stocks showed a notable move to the downside.
Other Markets
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher on Monday, with the Japanese markets closed for a holiday. China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed by 0.6 percent, while South Korea's Kospi surged by 2.8 percent.
Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the German DAX Index advanced by 0.7 percent, although the French CAC 40 Index edged down by 0.1 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index slipped by 0.2 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries continued to show a lack of direction after ending last Friday's trading roughly flat. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, crept up by less than a basis point to 4.106 percent.
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