Wall Street mixed, Durable goods disappoint

Traders works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photo / Getty Images

Wall Street was mixed, while US Treasuries rose amid concern the pace of economic growth might ease.

A Commerce Department report showed US durable goods orders fell more than expected in May, while orders for business equipment posted a surprise decline, bolstering concern about the strength of economic growth.

Treasuries rose, pushing the yield on the 10-year note two basis points lower to 2.13 per cent.

"The bond market is signalling an economic slowing," Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago, told Reuters. "That's why you're seeing defensive names like utilities do well, because equity investors are buying more in line with what that bond market is saying."

Wall Street was mixed. In 3.32pm trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2 per cent. However, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.2 per cent. In 3.16pm trading, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.2 per cent.

The Dow climbed as advances in shares of Goldman Sachs and those of Walt Disney, recently up 1.7 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively, outweighed slides in shares of Microsoft and those of Boeing, recently down 0.8 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.

Shares of Google parent Alphabet declined, trading 1.2 per cent weaker as of 3.35pm in New York. European Union antitrust regulators are likely to impose a record fine on Alphabet unit Google over its shopping service as soon as Tuesday, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday, according to Reuters.

The European Commission declined to comment, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Europe's Stoxx 600 Index ended the day with a 0.4 per cent advance from the previous close. The UK's FTSE 100 Index gained 0.3 per cent, Germany's DAX Index also rose 0.3 per cent, while France's CAC40 Index increased 0.6 per cent.

Shares of Switzerland's Nestle closed 4.3 per cent higher in Zurich. Activist investor Dan Loeb has amassed a US$3.5 billion stake in Europe's largest company. Third Point, Loeb's hedge fund, owns about 40 million shares in Nestle, according to an investor letter released Sunday after Bloomberg first reported the position.

"It is rare to find a business of Nestle's quality with so many avenues for improvement," wrote Third Point, which holds a 1.3 per cent stake and encouraged Nestle to sell its stake in cosmetics maker L'Oreal, according to Bloomberg.

Also gaining were Italian bank stocks after the nation's government agreed to spend as much as 17 billion euros on further shoring up the industry.

"We see virtually no risks attached to this transaction" for Intesa Sanpaolo "but other banks can celebrate too as they have avoided the risk of having to foot a very painful bill via extraordinary installments to the Resolution Fund," Andrea Filtri, an analyst at Mediobanca, wrote in a note Monday, Bloomberg reported.