Wall Street stocks finished mostly lower Monday as markets monitored surging US coronavirus case counts and the prospects for additional stimulus spending from Washington.
Two of the three major indices pulled back from Friday’s records, but the Nasdaq ended at another all-time high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.5 percent to finish the session at 30.069.79, and the broad-based S&P 500 shed 0.2 percent to close 3,691.97.
But the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.5 percent to 12,519.95 for its third straight record.
New Covid-19 cases in the United States have hit new peaks in recent days, along with rising death rates and hospitalizations.
But equities have still risen to new records as investors make bets based on expectations that wide deployment of coronavirus vaccines will spark a major economic rebound.
Markets also have been cheered by comments from key Washington power brokers in recent days that have boosted the prospects for additional stimulus spending before the end of the year.
Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital said Monday’s lackluster session reflected profit taking, with the “excuse” of the sluggish progress on stimulus after there were no major announcements on a bill over the weekend.
Among individual companies, Intel slumped 3.4 percent following a report that Apple is developing its own chip technology for its products, creating an alternative to Intel’s chips.
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