Dow, S&P 500 edge back from records

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks were under pressure early Tuesday after last week's records as investors weighed the latest mixed trends on Covid-19 amid concerns about lofty equity valuations.

Spain's Catalonia region said it will reimpose virus restrictions, while Germany on Monday said it would lift a ban on most travelers from the UK, India and three other countries hit by the Delta variant of Covid-19.

Those countervailing dynamics point to the scattered impacts of Covid-19 more than a year into the pandemic and come as Wall Street investors wonder whether there is much more upside in the near-term after the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all finished at records last week.

Nasdaq at record high on a boost from tech stocks

"The stock market has been on quite a run of late and several reports have discussed the huge inflows to equity funds in the first half of the year," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

"Consequently, there is some emerging concern that the stock market is due for a cooling-off period."

About 25 minutes into trading in the holiday-shortened week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.3 percent to 34,667.90.

The broad-based S&P 500 dipped 0.1 percent to 4,346.27, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.1 percent at 14,649.86.

Markets were closed Monday to observe the Independence Day holiday.

This week's calendar includes an industry survey of the US services sector and minutes from the Federal Reserve's policy meeting last month.