Major Averages Finish Lackluster Session Firmly In The Red

(RTTNews) - Stocks fluctuated over the course of the trading day on Monday but maintained a negative bias for much of the session and ended mostly lower. The pullback on the day came after the major averages turned in a mixed performance last week.

Trucking stocks saw significant weakness on the day, resulting in a 1.8 percent drop by the Dow Jones Trucking Index. The loss by the index came after it ended the previous session at its best closing level in a month.

Werner Enterprises (WERN) and YRC Worldwide (YRCW) turned in two of the trucking sector's worst performances on the day.

Considerable weakness was also visible among airline stocks, as reflected by the 1.6 percent loss posted by the NYSE Arca Airline Index. Allegiant Travel (ALGT) led the sector lower after Raymond James downgraded the stock to Market Perform from Outperform.

Health care, biotechnology and retail stocks also saw notable weakness on the day, while gold stocks moved sharply higher amid an increase by the price of the precious metal.

The major averages finished the session firmly in the red. The Dow fell 78.57 points or 0.4 percent to 17,719.92, the Nasdaq slid 18.86 points or 0.4 percent to 5,108.67 and the S&P 500 dropped 9.70 points or 0.5 percent to 2,080.41.