Dow, S&P 500 dip in early afternoon; Nasdaq up

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 are down slightly in early afternoon trading on Monday amid a drop in energy shares, while the Nasdaq is edging higher.

Shares of Exxon Mobil are down 1.2 percent, while the S&P energy index is down 1.6 percent, the day's worst-performing sector as oil prices decline.

Tech shares are rising, including Yahoo, up 2.6 percent and the Nasdaq's most active name in anticipation of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's initial public offering. Yahoo has a 22.4 percent stake in Alibaba and is required to sell 140 million Alibaba shares in the IPO.

"It's very light on the economic news (and) with people returning from summer vacation, it's all about the valuations so they will make these little moves like we're seeing here," said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

The Dow Jones industrial average was falling 9.28 points, or 0.05 percent, to 17,128.08, the S&P 500 was losing 4.68 points, or 0.23 percent, to 2,003.03 and the Nasdaq Composite was adding 6.10 points, or 0.13 percent, to 4,589.00.

The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange is Silver Spring Networks, rising 9.55 percent, while the largest percentage decliner is Coupons.com, down 9.06 percent.

Among the most active stocks on the NYSE are Brazil's Petrobras, down 2.68 percent to $18.86 and Ford Motor Co, down 2.21 percent to $16.76.

Besides Yahoo, most active shares include Microsoft, up 1.3 percent to $46.52 and Apple, down 0.1 percent to $98.87.

Declining issues are outnumbering advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,763 to 1,141, for a 1.55-to-1 ratio to the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,366 issues are rising and 1,284 falling for a 1.06-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The broad S&P 500 index was posting 42 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 64 new highs and 21 new lows.

(Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Nick Zieminski)