US stocks end lower on a lackluster trading day

US stocks ended with moderate losses on Monday, 20 May 2013 at Wall Street. Stocks tocks took a turn lower on Monday albeit a slight one, at the start of trading, but it soon got back in gear when buyers once again prevented sellers from gaining any traction. But the indices failed to hold on to gains and slipped on a lackluster day of trading.

There wasn't a lot of conviction on the part of either buyers or sellers. The major indices spent time on either side of the unchanged line, but never put a whole lot of distance between themselves and that point for most of the day.

For the day, the Dow ended lower by 19.12 points (0.12%) at 15,335.3. Nasdaq ended lower by 2.53 points (0.07%) at 3,496.73. S&P 500 ended lower by 1.18 points (0.07%) at 1,666.3. Dow was trading higher by 15 points earlier during the day.

Energy posted the largest gains of the index's 10 major industry groups with consumer staples being the biggest laggard. Seventeen out of thirty Dow components ended in the red led by Merck.

Merck & Co. was the worst performer on the Dow. General Electric shares finished 0.5% higher after GE Capital said it would pay its parent company $6.5 billion in dividends and another $4.5 billion in special dividends in 2013.

There weren't a lot of corporate headlines to sway things. There was some M&A activity, with Yahoo! buying Tumblr, Vista Equity Partners buying Websense and Actavis buying Warner Chilcott. These deals, though, have had only company-specific impact that did not influenced the broader market.

Volatility had generally been pretty low with the stock market moving both up and down in deliberate fashion, showing a bit of hesitation in front of Fed Chairman's testimony on Wednesday before Congress about the economic outlook.

Crude-oil prices ended higher on Monday, 20 May 2013 at Nymex. Prices rose following weak dollar and optimism about outlook for energy demand in coming months. Light and sweet crude for June ended higher by $0.69 (0.7%) at $96.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.

In the currency market, the dollar index, which weighs the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, fell by 0.3% on Monday.

Expectations that monetary stimulus by the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon come to an end have also hit gold prices. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday will testify before the Joint Economic Committee about the central bank's economic outlook and the FOMC will release minutes from its most recent policy meeting.

Gold for June delivery ended higher by $19.4 (1.4%) at $1,384.1 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. Gold rose for first time in eight sessions. July silver ended higher by $0.23 cents (1%) at $22.58 an ounce on Monday.

There was also a report released at midday on Monday that could have sparked some safe-haven buying demand for gold. Moody's reportedly said if the U.S. fails to act on its budget problems in 2013, then the ratings agency might downgrade U.S. government debt.

Advancers outnumbered decliners by about 17 to 13 on the New York Stock Exchange, and by about 13 to 11 on the Nasdaq. Composite volume topped 3.2 billion for NYSE-listed shares and 1.7 billion for Nasdaq-listed shares by 4 p.m. Eastern.

Indian ADRs ended lower on Monday. In the IT space, Infosys was down 0.6% and Wipro was down 1.3%. In the Banking space, HDFC Bank was down 1.4% and ICICI Bank was down 1.4%. In the Telecom space, Tata Communication was down 0.12%. In other space, Tata Motors was down 0.5%, Dr Reddys was down 0.7% and Sterlite was up 1.7%.

Tomorrow, there aren't any economic releases for the US tomorrow, but there will be a number of retailers (Home Depot, Best Buy, Saks, and TJX) reporting earnings before the open.

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