Wall Street slips as selling pressure continues
Wall Street fell on Monday, and added to last week's losses on the heels of a disappointing payrolls report, with little news or data to counteract the selling pressure.
The S&P 500, off more than 12 percent since its April 23 high for the year, on Monday hit the 1,060 level -- a key support level reached several times in recent weeks -- before briefly bouncing higher.
There wasn't much follow-through, and now we are kind of heading back the other way, said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois. There is nothing to counteract the most recent bad news that we've had.
Large industrials were among the primary laggards, with Caterpillar Inc down 1.7 percent to $56.78 and United Technologies Corp off 1.5 percent to $64.13. The S&P Industrial index <.GSPI> shed 1 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 26.71 points, or 0.27 percent, to 9,905.26. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> dropped 3.02 points, or 0.28 percent, to 1,061.86. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> dropped 19.63 points, or 0.88 percent, to 2,199.54.
U.S.-listed shares of BP Plc rose 1.2 percent to $37.60 after the company said it made progress in containing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but still faced tough questions.
In merger news, Spain's Grifols SA agreed to buy Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp , which produces plasma-based protein therapies, for $3.4 billion. Talecris surged 25 percent to $19.89.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co climbed 7.8 percent to $24.18 after a study found its experimental drug ipilimumab extended survival in patients with deadly skin cancer.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
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