Wall Street pares gains after GE tumbles, Treasury prices rise

By Stephanie Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks on Monday pared gains in late-afternoon trading after losses in General Electric weighed on Wall Street indexes, while U.S. Treasury prices rose in light volume.

General Electric was on track to post its worst single-day loss in more than six years, after a bunch of brokerages cut their price targets on the stock, citing higher chances of a dividend cut at the industrial conglomerate. The company tumbled 6.4 percent.

U.S. Treasury prices rose in thin volume, tracking gains in the European bond market, as investors added to positions after a selloff the last few days and ahead of this week's debt auctions and a European Central Bank monetary policy meeting.

 

"Anybody that wanted to sell on the idea that U.S. tax reform was on its way was able to do that last week and get reasonable prices to readjust their positions," said Jim Vogel, interest rates strategist, at FTN Financial in Memphis, Tennessee.

Benchmark 10-year notes > last rose 1/32 in price to yield 2.3791 percent, from 2.381 percent late on Friday.

The 30-year bond > last rose 1/32 in price to yield 2.8929 percent, from 2.894 percent late on Friday.

Wall Street had opened at record highs following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's emphatic win in weekend polls. The victory also sent the dollar to a three-month high against the yen, as investors bet the win would mean a continuation of "Abenomics," the ultra-loose policies that have kept downward pressure on the yen.

The Japanese yen weakened 0.21 percent versus the greenback at 113.77 per dollar.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 2.66 points, or 0.01 percent, to 23,325.97, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 3.86 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,571.35 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 16.80 points, or 0.25 percent, to 6,612.25.

Corporate earnings have gotten off to a strong start, with 73.2 percent of the 97 S&P companies beating profit expectations versus a 72-percent beat rate over the past four quarters.

European STOXX 600 shares <.STOXX> rose 0.16 percent, although Madrid's bourse IBEX <.IBEX> lagged its peers, shedding 0.6 percent, as Spain's crisis entered another week.

Madrid took the unprecedented step of firing the government of Catalonia on Saturday in a last resort to thwart its push for independence. Catalan leaders called for civil disobedience in response.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> rose 0.11 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.16 percent.

Japan's Nikkei <.N225> rose 1.11 percent. Emerging market stocks lost 0.29 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> closed 0.21 percent lower.

Argentina's stocks jumped as investors bet a strong electoral performance from President Mauricio Macri's coalition could boost his reform agenda.

Argentina's benchmark Merval index <.MERV> rose2.3 percent.

Gold > hit a more than two-week low. Spot gold > dropped 0.1 percent to $1,279.38 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.02 percent to $1,280.70 an ounce.

(Additional reporting Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru, Richard Leong in New York, Jan Harvey and Georgina Prodhan in London, and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski)