US close: Stocks flat as investors await retail sales data, earnings
Stocks ended the session much the same as they started them on Monday as Wall Street failed to bounce back from a losing week.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.04% at 36,087.45, while the S&P 500 was flat at 4,682.80 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.04% softer at 15,853.85.
The Dow Jones closed 12.86 points higher on Monday, building on gains recorded in the final session of last week.
Monday was a fairly uneventful day on the Street, with investors holding out for retail sales data tomorrow and new construction starts and building permits reports on Wednesday.
The only data point released on Monday was the latest Empire State manufacturing survey, which revealed the business activity grew strongly across New York, with the headline index climbing 11.1 points to 30.9, up from the previous month's print of 19.8 and ahead of forecasts for a reading of 21.6.
Looking ahead, while firms that responded to the survey said they remained optimistic that conditions will improve over the next six months, they were less so than a month earlier as the index for future business conditions fell 15 points to 36.9.
Elsewhere, investors cheered President Joe Biden's bill signing ceremony for the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, unlocking funds for transportation, broadband and utilities in the process, and also kept a close eye on the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which crossed over 1.6% during the session.
No major corporate earnings were released on Monday but investors were looking out for results from several major retailers later in the week, with Walmart, Home Depot, Target and Lowe's all reporting throughout the course of the week.
Elsewhere, Tesla stock closed 1.94% weaker after Elon Musk suggested he may sell more shares in the electric carmaker.