Stocks end mixed as Big Tech falls short

Wall Street’s major stock indexes ended mixed Monday as losses by technology and health care companies outweighed gains elsewhere in the market.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent after spending much of the day essentially flat.

The pullback ended a threeday winning streak for the benchmark index, which last week notched its first weekly gain in three weeks.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 0.5 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a 0.2 percent gain. Small company stocks fared better than the broader market, sending the Russell 2000 index 1.5 percent higher.

Bond yields moved broadly higher. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 1.49 percent from 1.46 percent late Friday. It was at 1.31 percent a week ago, as market jitters drove investors to shift money into bonds, which lowers their yield, but have been climbing since Tuesday.

Banks made solid gains as the 10-year Treasury yield rose. The yield influences interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans, so when it rises it allows lenders to charge higher rates. Bank of America gained 2.7 percent.

The S&P 500 fell 12.37 points to 4,443.11, the Nasdaq dropped 77.73 points to 14,969.97 and the Dow gained 71.37 points to 34,869.37.

The Russell 2000 picked up 32.93 points to 2,281, a sign that investors are still confident about future economic growth.

Markets have had a choppy month so far and the S&P 500 is on pace to shed 1.8 percent in September, which would mark the first monthly loss since January. Investors have been trying to gauge just how much room the economy has to grow amid waves of COVID-19 crimping consumer spending and job growth while inflation remains a concern.

The economic recovery started strong in 2021, but analysts and economists have been tempering their forecasts for the rest of the year.

Consumer spending has been the key driver for the economic recovery and it has been crimped in part by rising cases of COVID-19 because of the highly contagious delta variant.

Investors will get a solid glimpse into how that could continue to play out on Tuesday when The Conference Board releases its consumer confidence index for September.

Health care stocks also weighed on the market. Moderna dropped 5 percent and Abbot Laboratories lost 3.1 percent.

The price of benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 2 percent and supported gains for energy stocks. Exxon Mobil rose 3 percent.