NEW YORK — A retreat in oil and energy stocks pulled the rest of the U.S. stock market mostly lower Monday.
Campbell Soup declined after the company said its 2015 profits would miss analysts’ expectations. Yahoo, which owns a stake in Alibaba, jumped in anticipation of the giant Chinese technology company going public.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 25.94 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,111.42. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 6.17 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,001.54, and the Nasdaq composite added 9.39 points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,592.29.
Energy stocks were by far the biggest drag on the market. The energy component of the S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent, compared with the modest 0.3 percent decline in the main index. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, dropped $1.49, or 1.5 percent, to $97.77. It was the biggest loser among the Dow’s 30 members.
The decline in energy stocks was linked to a recent sell-off in the price of oil. Benchmark U.S. crude oil for October delivery fell 63 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $92.66 a barrel, the lowest price since January.
Oil prices have fallen for three days straight as geopolitical worries in Ukraine and particularly in Iraq have eased. Also impacting crude oil was a report out of China that showed manufacturing in the world’s second-largest economy was slowing down.
“The market is trading lower on this subdued, weaker global outlook,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment strategist at BMO Private Bank.
The three biggest decliners in the S&P 500 were oil drilling and exploration companies, which rely on high oil prices to justify pulling crude oil out of remote areas.
