Wall St. mixed as tech slump offsets other gains

NEW YORK — Major U.S. stock indexes closed mostly lower Monday as another rise in bond yields helped set off more heavy selling in technology companies.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% after having been up 1% earlier. Because of their huge size, drops by Apple, Google’s parent company and other major technology stocks helped drag the S&P 500 into the red, even though more stocks rose than fell in the benchmark index.

The selling, which accelerated toward the end of the day, left tech-heavy Nasdaq composite down 10.5% from all-time high it reached Feb. 12. A drop of 10% or more from a recent peak is known on Wall Street as a “correction.”

Bond yields rose broadly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed to 1.60% from 1.55% late Friday.

Yields have been marching higher with rising expectations for the economy’s growth and for the inflation that could accompany it. Higher yields put downward pressure on stocks generally, in part because they can steer away dollars that had been headed for the stock market into bonds instead. That makes investors less willing to pay as high prices for stocks, especially those that look the most expensive, such as technology stocks.

Investors can expect more market volatility as long as bond yields keep rising, said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs. “I do think it’s something that’s going to be temporary.”

Still, she said, pullback in tech stocks offers an attractive entry point for investors to snap up shares in big names, like Apple and Amazon, at a better price.

The S&P 500 fell 20.59 points to 3,821.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 306.14 points, or 1%, to 31,802.44. The index briefly climbed more than 650 points. The Nasdaq lost 310.99 points, or 2.4%, to 12,609.16.