New York: US stocks finished mixed on Monday as Wall Street wrapped up its best August in more than 30 years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 223.82 points, or 0.78 per cent, to 28,430.05. The S&P 500 was down 7.70 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 3,500.31. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 79.82 points, or 0.68 per cent, to 11,775.46, Xinhua reported.
Seven of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors closed lower, with energy down 2.2 per cent, leading the laggards. Technology climbed 0.36, the best-performing group.
Meanwhile, US-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower, with eight of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P US Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.
For the month, the Dow gained 7.6 per cent, its biggest August gain since 1984. The S&P 500 notched a 7 per cent monthly rise, marking its best August performance since 1986. The tech-heavy Nasdaq surged 9.6 per cent month to date.
The 30-stock index kicked off the week with a shift as three of its long-standing members, Exxon Mobil, Raytheon Technologies and Pfizer, were replaced by cloud services provider Salesforce, industrial conglomerate Honeywell and biotech firm Amgen at Monday’s open.
“The shuffle highlights the importance of diversification in ensuring that investors are well exposed to the winners in a post-Covid-19 world,” UBS Global Wealth Management’s Chief Investment Officer Mark Haefele said in a note on Monday.
