By Abhiram Nandakumar
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed in muted trading on Monday as investors paused before a busy week of quarterly results from U.S. banks and several Dow 30 companies.
JPMorgan reports on Tuesday, with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup posting results through the week.
The energy sector was the biggest decliner among the major S&P sectors as crude slipped. Chevron's 1.2 percent fall to $88.56 made it the biggest drag on the Dow Jones industrial average.
"I think it will be a generally very quiet day and investors will be content to sit on the sidelines today and wait for more earnings numbers tomorrow and some economic data," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.
Trading in equities was also affected by the closure of the bond market, banks and the government including Securities and Exchange Commission for the Columbus Day holiday.
At 10:59 a.m. ET, the Dow was down 2.84 points, or 0.02 percent, at 17,081.65, the S&P 500 was down 3.24 points, or 0.16 percent, at 2,011.65 and the Nasdaq composite index was down 1.55 points, or 0.03 percent, at 4,828.92.
Along with the banks, several Dow 30 components are scheduled to report results this week, including Johnson & Johnson, Intel and General Electric.
S&P 500 companies are expected to report a 4.8 percent fall in third-quarter profits, the biggest decline in six years, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Financial companies are expected to show earnings growth of 8.4 percent, down from the 14.8 percent expected at the start of the third quarter.
Health stocks were down after Eli Lilly said it was scrapping an experimental heart drug and taking a related charge in the current quarter.
Lilly fell as much as 8.9 percent to $78.47, putting the stock on track for its biggest single-day day decline in seven years. Rival Merck was down 1.2 percent at $50.32.
Regeneron was up 4.5 percent and Amgen 1.6 percent. Both companies recently received FDA approval for cholesterol-reducing drugs.
EMC's shares were up 1 percent at $28.15 after Dell said it would buy the data storage company in a $67 billion deal.
VMware, which is majority owned by EMC, fell 9.4 percent to $71.23 on concerns that Dell's plan to create a VMware tracking stock would increase the size of the float.
Six of the 10 major S&P sectors were in the black.
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said on Sunday the central bank was still likely to raise interest rates this year, unless global economic conditions push the U.S. economy off course.
Fed Board Governor Lael Brainard, who is a voting member of the Fed, is scheduled to speak later on Monday.
Twitter was down 5.8 percent at $29.09 after a report on Friday that the company was planning to announce layoffs this week.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,541 to 1,303. On the Nasdaq, 1,478 issues fell and 1,080 advanced.
The S&P 500 index showed 21 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 49 new highs and 21 new lows.
(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
