By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street backed off from record levels on Monday, with the Dow slipping more than 100 points, dragged lower by a slide in Apple shares after a report said iPhone X demand was waning.
Shares of Apple fell as much 2.6 percent after the Nikkei reported the company will cut production of its flagship gadget in half. Analysts expect the tech giant to report quarterly EPS of $3.83 on Thursday. Apples shares were last down 1.8 percent at $168.36.
"The market's responding to the question of what Apple's earnings are going to look like, specifically what kind of guidance are they going to give on iPhone X sales," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.
The technology sector's 0.62-percent drop weighed the most on the markets as all three major U.S. indexes retreated from highs and their strongest 4-week run since 2016.
However, the biggest decliners were defensive sectors - utilities, real estate and telecoms slid as U.S. 10-year treasury yields hit their highest since 2014.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 104.15 points, or 0.39 percent, to 26,512.56, the S&P 500 lost 11.22 points, or 0.39 percent, to 2,861.65 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 23.85 points, or 0.32 percent, to 7,481.92.
The S&P 500's remarkable 7-percent rally this year up to Friday's close has also driven up a measure of anxiety in the market, in a break with history.
The CBOE Volatility Index, a near-term gauge of investor anxiety, reached a high of 13.23 on Monday, its highest level since Dec. 1.
"There are more and more calls for a reversal at some point in time," said Hellwig. "We've had a long run in the stock market, and we've seen some unease, but that could be reversed with a couple of good days."
In an eventful week, investors will grapple with U.S. President Donald Trump's first official State of the Union speech, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting, the U.S. employment report, and a host of high-profile earnings from Amazon.com, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft, among others.
Fourth-quarter earnings for the S&P 500 are now seen growing 13.2 percent, up from 12 percent at the beginning of the year, according to Thomson Reuters data. Of the companies that have reported to date, 79.7 beat Wall Street expectations.
Aside from higher yields, telecom stocks also slipped on reports that the U.S. government was considering building a 5G wireless network to guard against spying.
AT&T was down 0.9, Verizon slipped 0.7 and Sprint pulled back by 1.3 percent.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group jumped to an all-time high, up as much as 32.4 percent, after K-cup maker Keurig Green Mountain said it will buy the company in a deal worth more than $21 billion.
Wynn Resorts was down 8.5 percent after the company announced the formation of a committee to investigate sexual misconduct allegations against its CEO Steve Wynn.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.39-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.75-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 125 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 150 new highs and 29 new lows.
(Reporting by Stephen Culp; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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