Investing.com - Shares eased in the U.S. on Monday with the market turning attention to the latest monetary policy views from the Federal Reserve and more quarterly earnings this week with e-commerce, social media and pharmacy in focus.
The Dow Jones fell 0.87%, the S&P 500 dipped 0.86%, while the Nasdaq Composite eased 1.02%.
Overnight, sentiment was bruised after Trump on Friday suspended travel to the United States from Syria, Iraq, Iran and four other Muslim-majority countries, saying the moves would help protect Americans from terrorist attacks.
The executive order led to huge protests in many U.S. cities and sparked global backlash, raising worries about the potentially destabilizing impact of Trump's policies.
Several U.S. tech companies such as Google (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:GOOGL), Apple (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:MSFT) have criticized the ban, while Starbucks (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:SBUX) chief executive Howard Schultz promised that the company would hire 10,000 refugees globally.
In economic news, data out Monday was mixed while personal spending continued to rise in December in line with expectations, but personal income advancing slightly less than expected.
The core PCE price index, a preferred gauge of inflation for the Federal Reserve (Fed), measured an annual rise of 1.7% in December, in line with expectations and the prior month’s upwardly revised reading.
In the real estate market, pending home sales once again showed strength in December with a 1.6% rise that beat expectations for a 1.1% increase.
In any case, market participants were also taking positions ahead of the Fed’s policy decision announcement on Wednesday or the jobs report on Friday.
Investors will also continue to focus on earnings as tech giants Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:FB) and Amazon (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:AMZN) as well as major drug companies Merck (NYSE:NYSE:MRK) and Pfizer (NYSE:NYSE:PFE) will release this week.
With 107 out of 500 S&P firms already having reported fourth quarter earnings, The Earnings Scout warned that despite a 67% beat rate on profit, only 25% of those companies had first quarter estimates raised with the average settling at a decline of 0.88% so far.