US close: Dow Jones gives back some of prior week's gains

dl nyse new york stock exchange wall st street city finance dow jones nasdaq sp finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america 2 — New York Stock ExchangeSharecast photo / Josh White

Major indices closed lower on Monday following a banner week that saw the blue-chip Dow Jones register more than 800 points in gains.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.20% at 31,438.26, while the S&P 500 was 0.30% softer at 3,900.11 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.72% weaker at 11,524.55.

The Dow closed 62.42 points lower on Monday, taking a bite out of solid gains recorded throughout the preceding week.

Stocks headed south on Monday as investors remained keenly focussed on whether US stocks have now reached their bottom or if markets were simply rebounding from oversold conditions ahead of the end of the second quarter.

The bond market was also in focus on Monday, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note trading a little more than seven basis points higher at 3.210%.

On the macro front, orders in the US for goods made to last more than three years rose more quickly than expected last month. According to the Department of Commerce, in seasonally adjusted terms, durable goods orders grew at a month-on-month clip of 0.7% in May (consensus: 0.1%).

April's gain, on the other hand, was revised down by one-tenth of a percentage point to show a rise of 0.4%. Excluding orders from the transportation sector, which are often volatile from one month to the next, May's tally for durable goods orders also beat forecasts, rising by 0.7% (consensus: 0.4%).

Elsewhere, US pending home sales rose 0.7% in May, according to the National Association of Realtors, snapping a six-month run of declines but were still 13.6% weaker year-on-year.

On the corporate front, Spirit Airlines was in focus after Frontier Airlines sweetened its offer for the company by $2.00 to $4.13 in cash, while Nike reported earnings of $0.90 per share for the fourth and final quarter of its trading year as revenues dipped 1% year-on-year to $12.2bn and gross margins contracted 80 basis points to 45%.

Coinbase shares closed 10.76% lower after Goldman Sachs reportedly cut its rating on the shares to 'sell' from 'buy'.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Unitedhealth Group Inc. (UNH) $505.66 2.02%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $147.57 1.93%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $94.41 1.37%
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) $42.19 1.30%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $187.59 1.13%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $142.80 0.52%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $167.49 0.46%
Walmart Inc. (WMT) $124.12 0.32%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $38.63 0.05%
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $50.96 0.00%