US stocks lose ground, still headed for big monthly gains

New York, The Gulf Observer: US Stocks fell in afternoon trading on Wall Street Monday, but with one day left in October major indexes are still headed for big gains for the month.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% as of 12:18 p.m. Eastern. The benchmark index is on track to notch its first monthly gain since July following two straight monthly losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 21 points, or 0.1%, to 32,837 and is on track for its biggest monthly gain since at least 1987, reports AP.

The Nasdaq fell 0.5% and is also on track for its first monthly gain since July. Technology and communications stocks were the biggest drags on the broader market Monday. Apple fell 1.1% and Google’s parent fell 1.3%.

Stocks have been gaining ground throughout October as investors shifted their focus to the latest round of corporate earnings.

More than half of the companies within the S&P 500 have reported results and shown overall earnings growth of 2.3%, according to FactSet.

Companies have so far given investors a mixed bag of results and forecasts as Wall Street tries to get a better picture of the economy.

Inflation remains stubbornly hot and the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates aggressively to try and slow down the economy and tame high prices. The strategy risks hitting the brakes too hard on economic growth and sending the economy into a recession.

Bond yields have been hovering near multi year highs as the Fed continues to raise interest rates. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for Fed action, rose to 4.48% from 4.42% late Friday.

Inflation has been a global problem and the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Monday that inflation hit another record in the 19 countries that use the euro currency.