After ending the previous session modestly higher, stocks are turning in a lackluster performance in morning trading on Monday. The Dow reached a new record intraday high early in the session but has pulled back near the unchanged line since then.
Currently, the Dow is up 1.42 points or less than a tenth of a percent at 22,094.23, the Nasdaq is up 16.78 points or 0.3 percent at 6,368.34 and the S&P 500 is up 0.51 points or less than a tenth of a percent at 2,477.34.
The choppy trading on Wall Street comes as traders continue to digest last Friday's better than expected employment data.
A Labor Department report said non-farm payroll employment surged up by 209,000 jobs in July after spiking by an upwardly revised 231,000 jobs in June. Economists had expected employment to climb by 183,000 jobs.
The stronger than expected job growth added to optimism about the economy but also raised concerns about the outlook for interest rates.
A lack of major U.S. economic data may also be keeping some traders on the sidelines ahead of reports on producer and consumer price inflation and labor productivity and costs in the coming days.
Remarks by several Federal Reserve officials may also attract attention this week, as traders look for clues about the future of monetary policy.
Traders may also be reluctant to make significant moves amid geopolitical uncertainty after the United Nations imposed stringent new sanctions on North Korea for its escalating nuclear and missile programs.
Most of the major sectors are showing only modest moves on the day, although considerable weakness is visible among oil service stocks. Reflecting the weakness in the sector, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index is down by 1.6 percent.
The weakness among oil service stocks comes amid a decrease by the price of crude oil, with crude for September delivery falling $0.35 to $49.23 a barrel.
Natural gas, tobacco, and trucking stocks are also seeing notable weakness in morning trading, while steel stocks have shown a strong move to the upside.
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher during trading on Monday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index and China's Shanghai Composite Index all climbed by 0.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the major European markets have turned mixed on the day. While the German DAX Index is down by 0.4 percent, the French CAC 40 Index is just above the unchanged line and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index is up by 0.2 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries are showing a lack of direction following the sharp pullback seen last Friday. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by less than a basis point at 2.264 percent
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