Major Averages Climb Off Lows But Remain In The Red

(RTTNews) - After coming under pressure in early trading, stocks remain mostly negative in mid-day trading on Monday. The losses on the day have partly offset the strong upward move that was seen in the previous week.

Gold stocks continue to see substantial weakness in mid-day trading, resulting in a 3.5 percent drop by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index. The loss by the index comes after it showed a strong upward move last week.

The weakness among gold stocks comes amid a decrease by the price of the precious metal, with gold for February delivery is sliding $6.80 to $1,069.10 an ounce.

Significant weakness also remains visible among energy stocks, which are moving lower along with the price of crude oil. Crude oil for February delivery is tumbling $1.24 to $35.86 a barrel after jumping $2.04 or 5.7 percent to $38.10 a barrel in the previous week.

Reflecting the weakness in the energy sector, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index is down by 2.4 percent, the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index is down by 2.2 percent and the NYSE Arca Oil & Gas Index is down by 1.9 percent.

Steel, airline, electronic storage, and semiconductor stocks are also seeing considerable weakness, moving lower along with most of the other major sectors.

In recent trading, the major averages have climbed off their worst levels of the day, but they remain firmly in the red. The Dow is down 82.28 points or 0.5 percent at 17,469.89, the Nasdaq is down 31.68 points or 0.6 percent at 5,016.81 and the S&P 500 is down 11.63 points or 0.6 percent at 2,049.36.