NEW YORK : Wall Street shares made a U-turn and closed lower on Monday as a strike at auto giant General Motors prompted investors to lock in profits from last week's strong performance.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 61.13 points (0.44 percent) to close at 13,759.06 after giving back gains of more than 50 points in early trade.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 3.27 points (0.12 percent) to 2,667.95 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index retreated 8.02 points (0.53 percent) to 1,517.73.
With no major economic data on tap, the market started on an upbeat note on momentum from last week's strong gains inspired by a half-point Federal Reserve rate cut, which sparked a broader market rise of some 2.8 percent.
But gains faded after the United Auto Workers union declared a strike at GM after failing to reach a contract deal by a deadline of 11:00 am (1500 GMT), in a surprise for some observers, which prompted some profit taking.
"Without any major economic or financial data, the losses are most attributed to some profit taking from last week, in addition to the UAW strike news," wrote analysts at Briefing.com.
"Although prior reports had indicated substantive progress had been made in their negotiations, a news conference held by the UAW to discuss the strike cast serious doubt on those reports."
GM highlighted the situation on Wall Street: after strong gains early on hopes of a contract settlement, its shares fell 0.57 percent to 34.74 dollars.
<---------- This strike is not on the US economic calender... :(
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