US: Oil shares, Tiffany drop as stocks retreat

[NEW YORK] Wall Street stocks retreated on Monday with petroleum-linked shares falling on lower oil prices and Tiffany declining on the departure of its chief executive.

Most oil producers tumbled on lower oil prices, with midsized companies suffering some of the hardest falls. Devon Energy dropped 3.2 per cent and Marathon Oil 4.1 per cent.

Jeweller Tiffany & Co. lost 2.5 per cent after announcing over the weekend that Frederic Cumenal had departed as chief executive and would be replaced on an interim basis by chairman and former chief executive Michael Kowalski.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.1 per cent to end the day at 20,052.42.

The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.2 per cent to 2,292.56, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.1 per cent to 5,663.55.

It was a light day as far as major economic data releases, and analysts said the market was still absorbing Friday's rally following a solid US jobs report, as well as President Donald Trump's plan to review banking regulations imposed after the 2008 financial crisis.

This week's calendar of earnings includes Coca-Cola, General Motors, Disney and Expedia.

Toy company Hasbro leaped 11.1 per cent after reporting a 10 per cent jump in fourth-quarter net income to US$192.7 million.

Tyson Foods fell 3.4 per cent after disclosing it had received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission in a probe into collusion among companies in the broiler chicken market. The food giant has denied wrongdoing.

Advanced Micro Devices surged 11.4 per cent following a bullish article in investor newspaper Barron's, which said shares could double on growth in cloud computing.

AFP