Wall Street: Dow falls 140 pts on slowing China growth, inflation worries

Disney slips as Barclays downgrades to 'equal weight'; energy shares gain as Brent crude tops $85

Wall Street's main indexes fell on Monday as economic growth in China slowed, while a relentless surge in oil prices fueled concerns about elevated inflation.

Data showed China's economy hit its slowest pace of growth in a year in the third quarter, hurt by power shortages and wobbles in the property sector.

"There is some weak data out of China, which is concerning on a global basis, and then market participants came into this earnings with a very pessimistic view but banks dramatically exceeded expectations," said Thomas Hayes, managing member at Great Hill Capital Llc in New York.

"Now we are in the second week of earnings, which is more dependant on the general economy as a whole, so it is a 'show me' kind of market now."

Nine of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors traded lower, while energy stocks rose 1.1% as Brent crude oil hit its highest since October 2018.

In the days ahead, investors will keep a close eye on how Corporate America mitigates the impact on earnings from supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and higher costs, especially in the wake of rising oil prices.

Forecast-beating results from big U.S. lenders last week set a positive tone for third-quarter earnings season, with analysts expecting S&P 500 earnings to show a 32% rise from a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.

Johnson & Johnson, insurer Travelers, Netflix Inc, Verizon Communications, oilfield services cos Baker Hughes Co, Schlumberger NV, Tesla Inc and Intel Corp are some of the companies set to report quarterly results this week.

Meanwhile, Growth stocks including Google-parent Alphabet , Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc,

Tesla Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc rose in early trading, with gains between 0.2% and 2%.

At 9:45 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 142.81 points, or 0.40%, at 35,151.95, the S&P 500 was down 10.34 points, or 0.23%, at 4,461.03 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 12.81 points, or 0.09%, at 14,884.53.

Apple Inc fell 0.6% ahead of its event where the iPhone maker is expected to unveil new Mac laptop computers with more powerful processor chips.

Walt Disney slipped 2.6% after Barclays downgraded the media giant's stock to "equal weight" from "overweight".

Dynavax Technologies jumped 2.5% after French biotech company Valneva SE reported positive results from its late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate VLA2001, using company's CpG 1018 adjuvant.

After better-than-expected September retail sales report on Friday, focus this week will also be on data related to housing starts, building permits, existing home sales, the Philly Fed index and Markit flash PMIs.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 2.04-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.69-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 12 new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 28 new highs and 39 new lows.