Investing.com - Energy and financial stocks were higher Monday. But there were struggles among big tech stocks as well as the defensive stocks that have led the market in recent weeks.
And the market pretty much stalled.
The S&P 500 was off slightly because of the tech weakness, which was more visible in the declines seen in the Nasdaq Composite, down 0.2%, and the Nasdaq 100 index, down 0.26%. The Dow, however, moved up 0.14% because of gains in its financial components, especially Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS).
The gains in financials reflected higher interest rates. The 10-year Treasury yield moved up to 1.646% from Friday's 1.55%.
Falls in Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) were among the bigger decliners among tech stocks.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) were higher. And the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 0.8%, helped by Intel, Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN), Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) and Broadcom NASDAQ:AVGO).
Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA), Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), and chemical maker Dow led the Dow, along with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM).
Energy stocks were buoyed by higher oil prices. West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.33 to $57.85 a barrel. Brent oil futures crude rose $1.05 to $62.59.
The gains were prompted by Saudi Arabia's naming Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as the new oil minister. He's expected to push for continuing production cuts among members of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has been trying to push global crude prices to $70 a barrel or higher to take of internal economic needs.
Also pressuring oil prices -- and boosting energy stocks -- was Israeli Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons site. The claim raised Middle Eastern tensions.
Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB), Apache (NYSE:APA) and Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) were among the bigger gainers. Chevron (NYSE:CVX) added nearly 1%. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) was up 0.8%.
Gold Futures moved lower as investors seemed more inclined to take on more risk.