Investing.com – Wall Street traded flat on Monday as U.S. stocks fought to recover from its worst two-week run since May in a quiet session lacking in economic data and major news headlines.
At 11:55AM ET (15:55GMT), the Dow Jones inched up 7 points, or 0.03%, the S&P 500 edged forward 1 point, or 0.05%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 8 points, or 0.13%.
Investors continued to show caution over stocks on Monday after the Dow and S&P registered their first two-week losing streak since May. The Nasdaq chalked up its fourth week of losses last Friday, its longest losing streak of the year.
In fact, even as the Nasdaq led losses on Monday, the tech index and the S&P are both on track for their worst month since October.
Still, all three major indices are running year-to-date gains of more than 8%, with some experts still suggesting to buy the dip.
Political turmoil at the White House has caused profit-taking as investors worry over U.S. President Donald Trump’s ability to push through tax reforms.
Geopolitical concerns were also back in focus as American and South Korean forces began their annual military exercises Monday, which will involve computer simulations designed to prepare for war with a nuclear-capable North Korea and are expected to last around 10 days.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the joint drills, called Ulchi Freedom Guardian, were purely defensive and did not aim to raise tensions on the peninsula, though Pyongyang suggested that the military maneuvers are “reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war.”
In a day with no major economic reports, ongoing uncertainty over the economic agenda of President Trump and doubts that the Federal Reserve will deliver a third rate hike this year have fed into recent dollar weakness.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down about 0.4% to 93.03 by 11:57AM ET (15:57GMT), near a more than one-week low of 92.92 hit earlier in the day.
Investors were looking ahead to the annual Jackson Hole economic symposium where the heads of the U.S. and European central banks will be making keynote speeches.
Though Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and European Central Bank president Mario Draghi are widely expected not to rock the boat by offering new insight into their respective paths of monetary policy in their speeches set for Friday, market players will pay close attention for any hints from the sidelines.
On the company front, shares of Nike (NYSE:NKE) led decliners on the Dow with losses of more than 2% after Jefferies downgraded the stock to hold from buy and cut its price target by $15 to $60.
In M&A news, Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) announced it would pay $9.45 billion to acquire power transmission firm Oncor, beating out a $9.0 billion offer from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa).
Among other big moves in the market, Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) jumped 11% after the nutritional supplement maker said it would buy back $600 million of shares after ending talks to be taken private.
Meanwhile, oil sank around 2% Monday as investor took profit from Friday’s 3% rally.
U.S. crude futures lost 1.89% to $47.74 by 11:58AM ET (15:58GMT), while Brent oil traded down 2.03% to $51.65.