Stocks Trade Morosely Before Earnings Roll In

Updated with Treasuries, stock and commodity prices

Oil extended its losses, and the major stock indices in New York closed up to 2% lower Tuesday despite a string of tech and energy upgrades ahead of the start of earnings season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 161.27 points, or 1.9%, to 8163.60, while the S&P 500 lost 17.7 points, or 2%, to 881.03. The Nasdaq Composite declined 41.23 points, or 2.3%, to 1746.17.

Alcoa(AA Quote) gained 1.6% a day before its earnings release. But industrials Caterpillar, Boeing(BA Quote), DuPont(DD Quote) and conglomerate General Electric(GE Quote) were 3% to 5% lower amid broad, cross-sector losses.

Economic recovery jitters, namely the discouraging jobs report from late last week, tugged at markets early Monday but were stifled by late-day buying and a report on the service sector. While no economic data were slated for Tuesday, those same concerns resurfaced as the steady roll of earnings neared and more people returned from the holiday weekend.

"While in June we had some difficult numbers that came out, we don't think that's derailing this recovery," said Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial. "We think that the bad weather [after] the really positive news that came out in May probably caused a little bit of a hiccup in June. The economy doesn't recover in a straight line; you're going to have these little blips and we think that's normal." (Click below for my entire conversation with Burt White on the economy and the markets, including areas he sees as opportunities.)

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Overall declines muffled a slew of analyst upgrades in the tech and energy spaces that sent some names higher. Those included LSI(LSI Quote), Marvell(MRVL Quote), and National Semiconductor(NSM Quote).