Afternoon Slump Leaves Major US Indexes Lower

An uneven trading session on Wall Street closed with stocks mostly lower Monday, as a late afternoon burst of selling derailed the market from a fresh all-time high.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% after having been up as much as 1% earlier in the day and on pace to eclipse the record high it set last Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%, while the Nasdaq retreated and slid 1.3% below the all-time high it recorded on Friday.

Bond yields moved solidly higher. Gold prices fell and energy futures mostly rose. The market was higher for much of the day as traders were relieved to know about Jerome Powell’s second four-year term as Fed Chair, a vote of confidence in Powell’s handling of central bank policies.

While stocks initially rallied on the news, bonds sold off, pushing yields broadly higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.63% from 1.54% late Friday.

Higher Treasury yields make the more expensive areas of the market, like technology stocks, less attractive, which may explain why there was more selling in stocks toward the end of the day as the bond market shifted.

The S&P 500 fell 15.02 points to 4,682.94. The Dow gained 17.27 points to 35,619.25. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gave up 202.68 points to 15,854.76. Small company stocks also fell. The Russell 2000 index dropped 11.81 points, or 0.5%, to 2,331.35.