Shares on Wall Street started the week on a down note on Mon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 164.31 pts or 0.52% to close at 31,173.84. The broader S&P 500 index fell 1.15%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 2.26%. The small-cap Russell 2000 dropped 2.11%.
Megacap tech stocks fell on Mon, including Apple (AAPL US, -1.48%), Microsoft (MSFT US, -1.18%), Amazon (AMZN US, -3.28%), Alphabet (GOOGL US, - 3.08%), NVidia (NVDA US, -4.33%), and Meta Platforms (META US, -4.68%).
Twitter (TWTR US, -11.3%) shares slumped after Elon Musk said he is pulling out of his $44b bid, setting the stage for a legal battle.
The NY-listed ADRs of Sands China (SYCH YY US, -8.3%) and Wynn Macau (WYNMY US, -7.2%) tumbled as gaming venues were shut in Macau in order to contain its worst-ever Covid-19 outbreak.
The Invesco Golden Dragon China ETF (PGJ US, -7.28%) fell on Mon, as investors digested news about Covid and fines levied on tech giants. Alibaba (BABA US, -9.37%) and Tencent (TCEHY US, -3.88%) slid after they were penalized for not reporting some acquisitions.
2Q earnings season kicks off this week, with PepsiCo (PEP US, -0.82%) due later today (Tue), followed by JP Morgan (JPM US, -1.31%) and Morgan Stanley (MS US, -1.19%) on Thur.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 8.75 basis points (bps) to 2.99%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries fell 3.29 bps to 3.07%.
Crude oil futures were volatile but generally held their ground, as traders brace for the possibility of new lockdowns in China that could impact demand. On Mon, the front-month Brent futures closed up 8 cents at US$107.10/bbl, while the WTI futures closed down 70 cents at US$104.09/bbl.
ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.95% to 108.021.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Aug) contracts settled down $10.60, or 0.6%, at US$1,731.70/oz. September silver, the most actively traded silver futures, fell 10.4 cents, or 0.5%, to end at US$19.132/oz.
European equity markets finished mixed on Mon. While the UK FTSE closed nearly flat, France's CAC 40 and the German DAX fell 0.61% and 1.40% respectively.