Bad Day Turns Worse

Updated from 4:14 p.m. EDT

Stocks in New York finished lower Monday as prospects unraveled for at least one big proposed merger, and oil prices again charged into uncharted territory.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average spent virtually the entire day in the red before closing off 86.66 points, or 0.68%, at 12,969.54. The S&P 500 gave up 6.41 points, or 0.45%, to 1407.49, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 12.87 points, or 0.52%, to 2464.12.

Breadth was negative to start the week. Declining issues outpaced advancers by nearly a 3-to-2 margin on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, as volume on the bourses reached 1.67 billion shares and 2.05 billion shares, respectively.

Even amid the apparent collapse of an anticipated tie-up between Microsoft (MSFT Quote) and Yahoo! (YHOO Quote), however, Peter Cardillo, chief market economist with Avalon Partners, believes that stocks' broader movements represent "a normal pullback after last week's healthy run-up."

Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at ChannelCapitalResearch.com, agreed that the market's seeming reaction is probably, in essence, an incidental move. "It's more that everybody doesn't trust what's happening," he said. "They're looking for any excuse they can to take tips under the table. If you were looking to trade something totally on fundamentals, there were as many excuses last week for stocks to go down when they rallied."

Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist with Delta Global Advisors, agreed. "I think [the merger news] is probably as good of an explanation or an excuse as any," he said. "This is pretty typical from what I've seen, that Mondays at least start with some weakness. But certainly I think the market will continue to exhibit this two-steps-up and one-step-back phenomenon."

< Previous

1 2 3 4 5

Next >